Sanctuary For Martyrs
by inkfingers mcgee
Summary: Dean goes through life with his head down. He marries his childhood best friend, becomes a paramedic, and promises his doctor he'll cut back on the fast food. He doesn't think about the brother who went missing from Stanford, who had sadness in his eyes and a knife under his pillow. But that changes when his wife Anna's eyes go empty and she gasps, "John Winchester has broken." WIP
1. 2008

If Dean thinks hard, if he really puts his mind to it, he can still dredge up the exact sensation of his first kiss.

Anna's lips caught and dragged, sticky with chapstick just applied. He made this wild sucking move that swallowed air and vacuumed his teeth taut against the insides of his cheeks, tugging her lower lip inward. She pushed away and laughed at him, but then came closer still. The touch of her hand tender on his jaw was a sick benediction; that gentleness, that acceptance, insured that she was his first and she'd be his last, even if she wasn't his only. There would be other girls. Dozens. But Anna would be the one that dug her nails in deepest and held on tightest.

She will always love him more than he loves her. He still has no idea what she sees in him.

It's days like this, especially, when he thinks she'd be better off without him.

Blood mars the underside of his left thumbnail. How it got there is unknown to him, as he wore gloves according to protocol, then scrubbed clean with the passion of a sinner after his shift. Excess adrenaline has him shaking like a rookie, tremors fierce enough to warrant Anna's worry; no way he's going inside before he calms down. He stands on his front porch, chasing after just one calm breath. He clings to the steady planes of the door, the chips in blue where weathered brown peeks through, the knob that rattles and catches beneath his hand just-so. He'll fix it all up one day. Really.

"Son of a bitch," he mumbles, and goes inside.

Low lights and the sulfur-and-pumpkin of a just-lit candle play over his senses. He pauses in the doorway to draw them in. Anna's probably lounging in the living room with rough drafts and a red pen, and he regrets immediately that he didn't just go for a beer instead of coming home on time. She wouldn't have noticed his absence in her editors' funk. Never does. In the same way, she doesn't acknowledge his presence as he slouches into the archway of their living room.

For the thousandth time, he surveys the plain, dollar-store decoration of their single-story two-bedroom and wishes he could have done better. Anna deserves something nicer, he's always thought. She says she's happy with it, of course, and doesn't complain. But she looks so out of place amid the second-hand furniture and the fake flowers in plastic pots. The sagging couch cradles her, long legs as lovely as ever in sweats, one of his shirts draped over her top. Her hair furls in fiery rings across her shoulders and over the swell of her breasts, face vague but lovely in the sparse light. She places a hand to her rounded belly and something like possession unfurls high and trembling in Dean's chest.

He wants, more than anything, to be proud of his wife and their unborn child. But Anna isn't his to be proud of, not really. She's a beautiful soul, which is a pussy thing to believe, but a true one. She is her own creature, or perhaps she belongs to something far off and unknown, something that threads beneath their every conversation, something she always hints at after a few too many beers, something that hangs heavy in each sigh. Anna is an enigma, a heady weight on Dean's subconscious; he is always afraid that the quaint windowpanes of their house are gilded bars to her. She could be something— someone— much more, a visionary or a new mother Theresa or some romantic crap like that. Something greater than what she is, a wife with a child inside and the red-streaked rough drafts of second-rate journalists resting on her belly.

Dean is almost certain she wouldn't have stayed with him had their childhoods not been so tangled up in each other, troubled souls indentured to each other's acceptance. He's heard about this "love map" shit before, a psychology concept that says someone can get stuck loving only certain people if they grow up too cramped together. He and Anna don't have a love map. They have a fucking love _atlas_, just the heights and depths of each other, except half of the Anna pages were ripped out at some point.

"Long day?"

Dean looks up at the croon of her voice. Despite everything, the familiar tone pulls one corner of his mouth quirking upward. "Long enough," he says.

Smiling, Anna shifts so that she's sitting with her feet on the floor and pats the vacant couch cushion beside her. Dean huffs low in his mouth, then takes the unspoken invitation, letting his duffel slide off his shoulder before he collapses next to her. She puts a soft hand against his stubble and presses down until he succumbs to lying his head against her shoulder. The backs of her nails draw through the fine-cropped hair on the side of his skull. His eyes slip shut.

"Did you lose someone today?" she asks.

Dean seizes up.

Anna's fingers fall still in his hair. "Wanna talk about it?"

Might as well. "Hit-and-run," Dean breathes. "14 years old. Had a fighting chance, then just…" His head throbs when he shakes it. "Slipped through my fingers."

"Baby, don't beat yourself up. It's not your job to save the whole world."

Except it really is.

The rush of a deep breath pulls past Dean's face, then Anna whispers, "You know I love you, right?"

And that's the thing about her: that love inside her, potent and vicious and more than he can ever return or deserve, always makes him feel like he's forging upstream as he tries to add even one lasting current to the overwhelming tide that is her love.

"I know," he murmurs.

Sometimes Dean wishes he was enough of a dick to be unfaithful.

Anna continues to stroke his hair and says nothing else. He loses himself in the ebb and flow of her gentle fingertips, and is thankful that he's known Anna too long to hide from her. If anyone else tried this shit, he'd be up and out in a heartbeat. But with her, he can just— just let himself be weak for a moment. He can depend on her comfort, if only for a while.

Finally, though, it's too much. He sits up.

"Let's go out," he says.

Thin brows shift higher on Anna's face. "Why?"

Dean shrugs. "Just 'cause."

"Where?" She watches him as if expecting a punchline, eyes bright, a smile crouched to pounce on the loose corners of her lips.

"You know, a restaurant or some place."

Anna cocks her head, an avian habit that once made Dean's chest go fuzzy and now puts a chill in his belly. He can't say why.

"What's the occasion?"

"Nothin'." Dean picks at a loose thread in his jeans. "Just wanna go eat someplace with you."

Chuckling, Anna asks, "Where? McDonald's?"

"No, like—" he turns to face her full-on. "What's that place you love? Chin Jung's or whatever?"

She indicates her belly. "No raw fish."

"Oh. Oh, right, yeah. What about that Bela Noche place? Italian?"

Her eyelids draw thin, lashes catching candlelight. "What's this for, Dean?"

"Just to be together."

A moment rolls by as she studies him, lips tight, before she treats him to a blooming smile that's become rarer over these past months. "Oh, Dean. You're so sweet. But I just—" she sighs and brushes her editing off of her lap, where it's been forgotten. "I'm such a mess right now. And I don't have anything to wear. Maybe we could just—"

"You've got that red dress," Dean says, referring to the number she wore a few weeks before to a church event. He recalls how the outfit framed her body with a clarity only possible in a man who hasn't experienced said body in months.

Anna flushes as if she knows what that dress does to him (she probably does; he isn't subtle about it). "I don't know, Dean…"

And he presses his lips to her temple, pushes close and breathes her in. "Stop worryin'. You look gorgeous." Somehow he still moves haltingly when he touches her belly, always haunted by the feeling that he's interrupting something, like he shouldn't impose himself on the internal bond between mother and child. His hand curves large and jagged in the low light over the soft swell of her. He breathes a sigh against her hair. "You deserve a little fun before you pop this one out, you know? Last few weeks of freedom and all that."

She laughs, then pushes him away. "Fine, fine, you win. Help me up."

Chuckling, Dean pushes to his feet and takes his wife's hand. He learned quickly that commenting on her new lack of balance is an expectant father faux pas, so he keeps it to himself when she almost stumbles into him upon standing. On her way out of the room, he taps her butt with a wandering hand and meets her glare with his most expensive smile.

His lips drop the moment she vanishes up the stairs.

* * *

"Am I losin' you?"

Dean really didn't mean to ask it out loud. He's just been sitting in front of his tortellini, trying to keep a lid on it, when it bursts out of him with a tone of gravel and a shaky throat.

Anna nearly drops her fork into her spaghetti. "What?"

His first impulse is to turn and call for the check, but he's already gone and dug himself into this one, so he might as well keep digging until he reaches the bottom. Then, at least, there'll be no place to go but up. He pushes a hand over his face, then lets it spill:

"Look, babe, lately I've been a hopeless sunnavabitch, and you've always been so gracious and good, and if this is some kind of calm before the storm or somethin'—"

"Dean, I'm having your baby!" Anna whispers, sharp enough to draw blood. "What are you talking about?"

Leaning over his tortellini, Dean struggles to keep his voice low. "Well, it's not like we planned this! Maybe if you weren't pregnant you would've gone and left by now, and now that there's a kid in the mix you feel stuck, and—"

"How could you say that?" Anna sifts forward with the weight of everything gleaming into her eyes, straining the smooth cut of the tendon in her neck. "I promised, Dean. Before God and our families and everybody. You really think I would make a promise like that and ever want to go back on it? I would give up heaven and earth for this, Dean. For my life. For you."

Shit, that's the problem. Anna is nothing but powerful love and terrifying promises and commitment that feels like a fucking war order.

And Dean is… fuck. He doesn't know what he is.

"Have you stopped seeing your therapist again?"

All at once, his collar goes tight and his jaw goes clenched and his vision may go a little blurry. "The hell do you get off asking me something like that? We said we weren't gonna—"

"Well I'm sorry, Dean, but when you start asking if I'm getting ready to leave you a week before I have your baby, it makes me wonder if you're thinking straight." Anna's fork, which has been clenched in her fist, hits the tabletop under the thunder of her flat palm. Neighboring patrons steal glances at them. "Is this about the kid you lost today?"

Yeah, Dean's vision is officially blurry. He wants to fucking _hit_ something. "We already talked about that."

"No, we really didn't, Dean. You never _talk_ about it." She leans closer, and the whites of her eyes are almost blinding. "This complex you have where it's your job to do everything is crap, Dean. You always say you have faith in your team to preform their jobs, then you only blame yourself when you lose someone? Do the occupational hazards of being a paramedic really screw with your savior complex so bad that you think you're not good enough to have a wife who loves you?"

If they were at home, he would have broken a lamp by now. As it is, he shakes with the effort of not screaming. "Shit questions like that are why I stopped seeing the goddamn therapist in the first place."

Anna's voice goes dangerous-low. "Well, maybe you should go back to seeing him, since apparently now you're dealing with your abandonment issues by taking them out on me. I'm not your father, and I'm not Sam."

Dean jerks back and realizes: hell, right, this is Anna. Anna, who plays rougher than him and cuts deep without a thought. Anna, who knows all the little ways he's broken and isn't afraid to use them. Anna, who fights with abandon because she knows he'll come crawling back later, and she can pour her love into the wounds and wash him pure again.

"I just don't want to lose you," Dean says, and his voice settles broken in his ears.

Anna's mouth opens as if to answer, then gasps and clutches the rim of the table.

Dean flinches. "Anna?"

"Dean, that's—" One hand goes white-knuckled against the table. The other goes to her belly. "I think it's happening."

"It's happening," Dean repeats, deadpan.

Another gasp, and Anna's wide eyes turn on him. "The baby. Oh, my god. I think I'm having the baby."

* * *

Anna screams like death for the first six hours. The nurses inject her with all types of hell knows what, but nothing helps. They mumble half-theories and try to mask their alarm in Dean's peripheral, but Anna commands his eyes, anyway. She goes pale then red then pale then red, washed out with the tide of pain, then sobbing when it swells and crashes over her.

She grabs for Dean's hand, and guilt drops heavy into the bottom of his stomach.

* * *

Seventeen hours in, someone says _C-section_, and Anna begins to thrash.

"No, no, don't— you can't cut me, don't break in, please—" Her nails bite the back of Dean's hand into burgundy laces, crescents slicing into one another every time she shifts her grip. He has to choke back a whine of pain because he's supposed to be the strong one here.

He's never felt more helpless in his life.

* * *

"What the hell, Doc?" he hisses at Anna's physician when a lull in the contractions has left Anna half-asleep.

The doctor shakes her head. "I don't know. We haven't found any complications. The baby just… doesn't want to come."

Anna shrieks. The lights shudder. Nurses scramble, checking equipment, splitting up to go find out what the hell is going on with the electricity.

The shock of his wife's scream is going to break Dean, sooner or later. He all-but-snarls at the doctor, "Can't you up her doses? Cut down some of this pain?"

Another despairing head-shake. "Any more and we'd risk affecting the baby. I'm sorry, Mr. Larson. It's going to be rough, but your wife will be okay."

Anna shrieks again, and somehow Dean does not believe the doctor.

* * *

During the final hour of labor, Anna goes silent. Dean assumes the drugs have kicked in when her head lolls and her eyes roll, and it scares the fuck out of him, but the professionals in the room assure him that she's fine because her vitals are pristine and she's still pushing. The lights continue to flicker, and no one can figure out why; eventually they stop trying, since the important equipment runs on different generators (or something like that; Dean stopped listening ten hours ago).

When the baby crowns, the lights burst. No one is hurt, but Dean forgets to breathe amid the shrill song of glass against the floor. He shouts Anna's name, and her eyes snap forward. She screams like a woman possessed on the last push.

After twenty-one and a half hours, Dean is a father.

The baby cries once, and is silent. Dean's heart thunders and his head swims, but they assure him the child is fine. She's breathing. Her little heart is beating. She's just quiet. Unusually quiet.

The doctor, nurses and new parents are just as quiet, even as the baby is taken to be cleaned and Anna is moved to another room so the broken lights can be swept up and repaired. No one says anything beyond the necessary.

Dean sits in the corner of the new room and tells himself that he will not tremble. Pain flares up in his knuckles as he grips the arm rests of his chair, and his teeth grate so hard they echo into the back of his skull, but he remains rigid. He doesn't move until the nurse finishes with the baby, at which point he jerks forward to take the squirming bundle in his arms, only to drop back into his seat when he's passed by and his daughter is placed in Anna's arms. Anna stares, wordless, at the baby as she nurses for the first time.

Some part of Dean's brain keeps telling him to make _Rosemary's Baby_ references, and he keeps telling it to shut the fuck up.

When Anna finishes nursing and Dean's daughter, fuzzy and purple and warm, is finally placed into his arms, it's as if the last day never happened. The tremor of his heart and the hitching of his lungs and the cold stirrings in the pit of his gut all ease away, until he's not wrought, exhausted Dean anymore; he is _father_ now, protector, and all he wants to do is wrap safe and tight around his baby girl. He cradles her close and fears to breathe because all he wants for her is stillness. She has fought so hard already. He desires for her peace above all else.

She stares into him.

"Never did decide on a name, did we?" he whispers to Anna, brushing the tips of his fingers over kitten-soft hair. The baby's gaze has not left his, not once. He didn't think they could focus on anything this early. The more he stares back, the more he thinks he sees something shining and almost grey on the cusps of her tiny pupils.

"Adriel," says Anna.

Dean looks up at his wife. God, she's pale. Exhaustion drapes bruise-purple beneath her eyes. He returns his gaze to the baby because that's easier. "What?" he asks.

"Adriel." Her voice drags, long and lazy. "The angel of the souls who pass through the eastern gates. S'a good name."

"Oh," Dean says, because it's just that sort of day. At least it's a pretty name. "Sounds good. Yeah." Maybe they'll wait a while before putting that on the birth certificate.

It's then that a nurse comes in to take the baby away again, for tests and getting the feet prints and all of the medical voodoo Dean knows nothing about. Their daughter goes into a cart, and then she's gone. An overwhelming and slightly embarrassing urge to flag the nurse down almost overcomes Dean, but he swallows it and scoots his chair over to Anna instead. He pushes a tangle of hair out of her face then leans in to leave a kiss on her forehead.

She watches him with glassy eyes. "I wish they didn't... didn't take her away."

"She'll be back," Dean murmurs, and feels an impossible smile tug at the corners of his lips when her fingers thread into his, though her IV tries to come between them. Sneaky little bastard.

Anna draws a long, shaking breath. Then she whispers, "I made something. Something human. Earthy, dirty, squirming. Just like me. I'm human, Dean."

Shit, those drugs must be strong.

"Why don't you get some sleep, huh, baby?" This time he kisses her cheek.

Her fingers slide out of his, and she nods. "Yeah. Good… good idea."

She's out in moments.

Dean waits until her sleep goes deep and still before he allows himself to leave. He's only deserted her side three times since her labor began, twice to piss and once because a nurse ordered him to get some food into his gullet before he passed out on them. Now, he wanders out into the lobby and flips his phone open.

His brother is the first person he calls. Three rings, then a familiar voice leaps through the static.

"_Hey, lil' bro_!"

Dean smiles despite his insides being jello and says, "Hey, Liam."

"_So, s'this the call?_" A rustle in the background, like blankets thrown aside. "_She popped?_"

"Yeah, yeah."

"_Congrats, Dad! You named it yet?_"

"Her. It's a girl. And yeah— uh, I guess." Dean chuckles and rubs his face from the temples downward. God, his hands are still sweaty. "It's not official, but I think her name's gonna be Adriel."

A snort. "_That's weird._"

"Anna chose it." (Liam humphs like _no surprise there_.) "I think it's out of the Bible or something."

"_Sweet. How's New Mom?_"

"Knocked out cold. Sleepin' like an angel."

"_Great, Dean. But, uh…_" More rustling in the background. "_How about we come tomorrow? Lacy's already in bed, and you know how she gets when_—"

"Dude, it's cool. Tomorrow's great." Dean scuffs a shoe against the floor and realizes for the first time that he never changed out of his date suit. Loose tie, baggy eyes, rumbled slacks: he'd be the quintessential brand new dad, if it were the fifties. "We didn't expect you guys to drop everything and come running out here. We need the rest, anyway."

"_Thanks, bro. Hey, you called Mom and Dad yet?_"

Dean snorts. "Nah, man. It's like 4 AM in London, right?"

"_Heck if I know. Hey, when you do call them, you better record it or something. Can't wait to hear what Mom says when you tell her she's got her first grandchild._"

"I will, man."

"_What about Anna's parents? They there already?_"

Oh, fuck. Dean completely forgot to call them. And Anna was in too much pain to talk for most of the past day, let alone remember to make calls. Hell. He'll be in the dog house for the rest of eternity. Way to go, Dean. He's not notorious for getting along with the in-laws, but forgetting to inform them that grandchild numero uno is on the way? He'll be lucky if Anna doesn't leave him.

Rather than risk Liam's teasing, or worse, one of his lectures, Dean says, "Uh… not yet."

"_Aw, you two have your little bundle of joy all to yourselves, then. Cool_."

That sounds best in theory, Dean thinks. "Yeah, something like that," he mumbles, then steels his voice. "See ya tomorrow?"

"_Bright and early. Congrats again!_"

"Thanks."

"_Buh-bye_."

Dean hangs up.

He calls Anna's parents next and bullshits the answering machine about "quick labor" and "didn't have a chance to call you guys until now." His stomach goes hot and tumultuous as he does it, but he's practiced in biting down that feeling with a deep breath and an oath not to think about it. Once that's done, he stares at his speed dial, and has to tell himself not to call the number listed under _0_.

Self-control has never really been his forte, but the rules are simple: don't take a joint from a guy named Don, and don't ring your AWOL fugitive brother.

Dean glares down at the little _0_ until it begins to swim in his vision and tells himself that he will not dial it. He knows better. Even if somebody were to pick up the other line, what good would it do? He misses the kid, but he sure as hell isn't gonna let him anywhere near his new family. No. No, siree. He is not going to call. There's no reason to.

He breathes, "Fuck," and hits _0_.

Ten rings, then a generic answering machine recording.

He clears his throat. "Hey, Sammy. I don't know where you are, or what you're doing, or if you're even— hell. Look, if you get this, you should know I get to call you Uncle Sam now. Anna just had a baby. I think we're calling her Adriel. She's— she's awesome, man. Uh, call me if you get this."

Dean hangs up and pushes a hand over his face. The dial tone is a dirge in his ear. He snaps the phone shut.

Sam's not going to call.

Dead men don't, he supposes.

* * *

Dean is not superstitious.

He does not believe in ghosts. He believes the only bad luck in breaking a mirror is getting a piece stuck in his foot, and the worst of crossing a black cat is having to vacuum its hair out of the carpet later.

But it really fucks with a man when the lights flicker every time his newborn baby cries.

Tonight Adriel's whinging mewls don't wake him up, simply pull his mind from the cradle of contemplation to the stillness of his bedroom. He allows the sounds to go on for a moment, broken already of his instinct to run to her at the first signs of distress. As hard as it is, he knows that waiting her out provides a fair chance for everybody to fall back to sleep on their own. Well— on another night, it would. He doesn't foresee any rest for himself in the immediate future.

The sheets stir beside him. "Dean—"

"I've got her," he murmurs, voice midnight-rough. "You sleep."

Anna makes a noncommittal sound and shifts back into the blankets.

By now the flutter of the hallway lights is expected. That doesn't make the walk from their room to the nursery any less haunting. The planes of his house dance from familiar to hostile in his peripheral, lit one moment and an abyss the next. If he walks a little faster than necessary, that's just because the linoleum is cold on his feet. November will do that kind of thing to a guy.

In Adriel's room, the night light flickers and the mobile spins of its own accord above her crib. Adriel quiets somewhat when she sees him, and reaches out with awareness and dexterity that the pediatrician called things like "incredible" and "prodigious" at her ten week checkup. Dean calls it eerie.

All the same, his chest goes warm when he lifts his daughter close. Her soft body curls into his arms, and he can't help but smile. "Hey, Addie," he murmurs against her forehead, drawing in in the milky scent of baby. He rocks on his feet as he breathes low nonsense into her skin, a constant murmur of promised presence, protection and love. Slowly, the night light steadies and the mobile stops. Dean waits at the crib side, sensing sleep in the slow quell of her breathing. She'll be out like the lights around them in no time.

He wonders if he should mention the electrical upsets to Anna.

The first time he brought it up they were arguing, a shouting match after it became apparent that Dean had not only forgotten to contact the in-laws, but lied about it later. He was tired and guilty, feeling cornered by his wife's postpartum funk, and in his desperation asked her if she was so tuned out that she didn't even notice the behavior of their lights. Anna blamed it on the quality of the house, which spiraled into an uncalled-for fight about their living conditions, and ended in Dean sleeping on the couch.

Perhaps Anna doesn't want it mentioned.

A small snuffle from Adriel pulls Dean to attention. She's asleep. A kiss to her forehead, and he levels her gently into the crib. He backs out of the room with soft breaths and even softer steps, then pulls the door soundlessly closed behind him.

In the undisturbed darkness of the hallway, he allows himself to ask if it is possible to fear something as much as he loves it. No one answers.

And that's when Anna screams.

Dean thought, foolishly, that the wails of Anna's labor were the worst sounds he'd ever hear from her. This scream grabs those by the neck and chokes the terror right out of them. He's back down the hall crying her name before he has time to think, deaf to Adriel's renewed wailing, deaf to anything but the splitting agony from Anna's lips.

He finds her twisted up in she sheets, head thrown back, hair a fiery tangle. The spill of horror goes silent the moment his hands clutch her shoulders; she throws her eyes upon him, and the whites are blown wide, pupils almost gone. Her breaths rattle.

"Anna! What! You okay?"

Anna draws a wheezing gasp and says nothing.

"Anna, baby, please! Talk to me!"

The overhead light whines to full wattage, then bursts in a shower of glass and sparks.

Then Anna says, "John Winchester has broken."


	2. 1984

(Warning for non-graphic child violence.)

* * *

**1984**

Dean was five years old the last time he saw his father.

He remembers the man with a shock of dark blue over the side of his face, like war paint: the blurry edge of a leg in jeans, the Great Wall of Miss Missouri, impenetrable and keeping him from rushing back to his daddy's side.

"You really think leavin' them now is best?" Miss Missouri had a gentle voice, but it came serious now, like Mommy's would when Dean tried to jump down the last five stairs. "I _know_, John. I can sense what you're feelin'. It's hard for you. But these boys need you here. It ain't been long enough since—" Her plush lips tightened, chin going strong. Dean wondered why grownups were so afraid to talk about the fire.

Daddy breathed out hard. "People are gettin' hurt. Someone should do somethin' about it."

"But there's other people, John. Other hunters. It don't have to be you."

Dean wasn't sure what they were talking about, but Miss Missouri's voice didn't sound quite so gentle anymore. Daddy opened his mouth, but Miss Missouri cut him a look that made his mouth close again. She continued, "This ain't a one-time deal. Now, this thing may be what killed your wife, and it may not be, but either way, you kill it, and this life will never let you go. Evil will always follow you."

Daddy's face went heavy beneath his rumpled brow, and Dean remembers thinking that the man got really old really fast. He was too young to know that if time eats a guy slowly, then grief does it like a fucking piranha.

"I can't just stand here, doin' nothin'."

Miss Missouri put a hand on her broad hip. "I'm not askin' you to just stand there. I'm askin' you to take care of these boys." She gave Dean a firm pat on the back of the head, as if for emphasis. He squeaked.

A sharp breath inward, then Daddy shook his head. "I don't see how you can tell me the truth about- about what's out there, what's under beds and in shadows, and expect me not to—"

"Someone _else_ can take care of it." Miss Missouri's voice was a little higher, a little more insistent. Dean still had no idea what they were talking about, but he did know that Miss Missouri would have smacked him with a spoon by now if she kept having to tell him the same thing over and over like this.

Daddy jerked his head sharp from side to side and ran a big hand over his face. "No. It has to be me. Another fire in town, within just a few months… that can't be a coincidence. I gotta be there. If some kind of- if some _thing_ is behind this, I wanna be the one who—"

"John Winchester, killin' the evil that did this will not put your family back together. You bein' here with these boys will." Though she had been looking fierce at Daddy for the last several minutes, Miss Missouri turned to Dean now, and her eyes were soft beneath the shade of her springy hair. Dean wanted to hide under there with her, just hide forever from everything, from his suddenly old-and-tired daddy, from the way Sammy cried more now, from the phantom smell of the fire eating their house.

"I can't rest 'till I know it's gone," Daddy said. He shifted on his feet and threw a glance at the nighttime behind Miss Missouri's old screen door.

Once she broke her eyes away from Dean, Miss Missouri turned back to Daddy and frowned when she follows his gaze. "Not tonight, John. Please, at least wait 'till the police are gone, let me walk through the house, see if I sense anything. If it's just a fire—"

"How can it be 'just a fire'?" Daddy cried, throwing his hands out to the sides. He looked bearish, bigger than Dean had ever seen him. "Right here in Lawrence, family of four, fire burnt it almost to the ground. Only difference is—" His eyes fell to Dean, big and, if Dean didn't know better, scared, "the kids didn't survive, but Missouri—"

"You gotta at least wait out the police. You get arrested snoopin' around in there, and these boys won't have a soul in the world!" (Daddy looked away from Dean like it was hurting him.) "Wait 'till it's clear, John, I'm beggin' you."

"But whatever did this might be _gone_ by then, and—"

"Boy, you can't just—"

At that moment a wail cut the room, and the fighting broke off into two grownups sighing away their anger. Sammy continued to cry for a long moment before Miss Missouri huffed and made for the stairs. The moment she moved, Dean bolted across the room. He remembers, more clearly than anything, the burn of Daddy's jeans twisting under his chubby fingers.

"Hey, Tiger." Daddy knelt beside him, great hand on his tiny shoulder. "You shouldn't be hearin' this. You better get to bed."

"Daddy, I don't want you to go," Dean said, a plea more than a statement.

These days he'd become familiar with the way grownups hid what they were really feeling, and the bit of work Daddy pulled with the corner of his mouth and the tightening of his shoulders was shoddy at best. "I'll be back soon, Dean," he said. "Miss Missouri's gonna take good care of you, okay?"

"Okay," Dean peeped, not so much out of agreement as out of duty. He would be okay for Daddy. He had to be. Daddy nodded then pulled him into a hug.

It was then that Miss Missouri came clumping down the stairs with a mess of breathing blankets over her shoulder, Sammy somewhere inside. She stepped up close to Daddy with a frowning face. The sounds of a toddler breathing through a stopped-up nose fell frail and erratic over the room. Daddy stood up.

"John, please—"

"No. I have to." And that was it. Daddy turned and left, the screen smacking the frame behind him. By the time Miss Missouri got outside, Dean stumbling at her heels, the gleam of the Impala was slipping out of the porchlight, and Dean's daddy became nothing but the sound of an engine swallowed up by the symphony of cicadas.

Missouri dropped a sharp "Damn," and Sammy whimpered. Then they stood there, silent in the dirge of scrapes and chirps. The wind weaseled up Dean's too-big T-shirt and whipped his hair, stung his eyes. But he couldn't cry. Even then, he knew he couldn't. Not in front of Miss Missouri. Not in front of Sammy.

He did not cry until six days later.

Midnight hung chilly in the February air, and Dean had just woken, gasping, from a dream about Sammy crying and Daddy in front of the roaring fireplace, back turned, doing nothing about it. He wanted to run upstairs and join Miss Missouri in her bed, but the cold bullied him into staying. The heavy blanket she had lined the couch with rested soft and warm beneath his body; his hands fisted into it as he pretended it was the same as his racecar sheets at home. After asking Daddy about the racecar sheets and getting only a head-shake in reply, he guessed he was going to have to settle with boring stuff on his bed from now on. He wondered if Sammy missed his clown sheets.

A creak turned his head toward the front door. The screen and the solid door were shut, but after a series of quiet clicking and scraping sounds, the solid door opened and moonlight began to pop through the screen in little beams. Dean watched, blinking sleep out of his eyes. Slowly, slowly, a big shape sliced through the moonlight, a shape with a ruffled head and big shoulders.

Dean sat up. "Daddy?"

The shape stopped, then pushed the screen door open slowly. Dean shivered at the sound of the hinges.

"Dean?" Daddy asked, like he really wasn't sure. "That you?"

Frowning, Dean pushed his blankets down to his sock-feet, even though it was cold. "Yes sir," he said. "Daddy, are you back from your trip?"

The shape of Daddy stepped inside and guided the screen door slowly shut, so it wouldn't bang the frame. "Yeah, yeah. Hey, come give your old man a hug, huh?"

Dean couldn't have reached to his daddy's arms faster if there had been coals under his feet. He threw a hug around the man's middle, fingers twisting into the familiar half-chafed leather of his jacket. Big arms came around him in return, and Dean had just barely realized that they brought with them a not-quite-right smell when he was hefted from the ground and half-dragged, half-carried out onto the front porch.

"Daddy—" he squeaked, then was silenced by a callused hand on his mouth and nose. Sweat and body heat pushed stifling against his lungs, making him jerk in alarm, socked feet dampening in the sleet-speckled grass.

"Shut up," Daddy snarled, and Dean couldn't help but obey. Dean's whole body jerked as Daddy broke into a run across the lawn, strong arm pushing hard against Dean's soft middle with every step. A few more bounds and Dean slipped, prepared to tumble to the ground, but snatched by the hand at the last minute and forced to stumble along after. Just as Dean realized they were heading the Impala parked at the curb, a loud _click_ sliced the midnight silence. Daddy swiveled.

"You stop right there, you bastard." Missouri stood with a shotgun trained on them, a too-long T-shirt rippling in the wind over her curvy top, fluttering around her bare thighs.

Pressure cut hard into Dean's throat, sudden and making him gasp as Daddy lifted him from the ground by the neck and held him against his body with an elbow. "Put that gun down," he snarled, "or I'll break his neck."

"I'll shoot you," Miss Missouri said, and her voice was calm. She was not just trying to look scary, Dean thought. She was making a promise.

Dean wanted to throw up. The hold tightened around his neck, and he gagged.

When Daddy spoke, spittle scattered through Dean's hair. "How good is your aim, bitch?"

Missouri closed one eye and leveled the rifle, then there was a _bang_ that rattled the insides of Dean's head and a spray of something warm over his socks.

Daddy shouted, "_Fuck!_" Then they were moving again, Daddy stumbling and Dean struggling to get away but unable with the arm around his neck. He thrashed and wheezed and even tried to bite, but couldn't gain any leverage, especially as Daddy's stumbling run jerked against his throat.

"No, no, _no_—" Miss Missouri was shouting as she chased them.

Dean's eyes blurred, but he could just make out the sharp shadows of a fence and a brick wall in front of them. Cornered. They stopped moving, and a low string of swear words simmered into the air above his head. Then Miss Missouri's footsteps crunched behind them and Daddy spun, making Dean dizzy.

"I got you!" Miss Missouri shouted, but she sounded far off. "You're not getting away, now, so you give me that boy!"

Daddy snarled, "Take him," and then the world rushed around Dean, gasping and cold and—

_Crack_.

Dean had never been hurt beyond a boo-boo here or there, but he knew the moment the brick wall met him that bones were broken. Still gasping for air from being choked, he found himself hitching with sobs, then beginning to wail, unable to handle the fear and the _pain_ and...

Miss Missouri's gentle touch chased him into unconsciousness.

* * *

The light hurt his eyes, even though his lids were still shut. It also hurt his arm, and his back, and his side.

No. Wait. Those just hurt by themselves.

"Ngh," Dean said and twisted in his sheets. A frown pulled his (dry, yucky-tasting) mouth. Scratchy sheets. Not the racecar ones.

"Hey, Buddy. Buddy? You with me?"

Wincing at the hurt in his body, Dean turned his head toward the unfamiliar voice. He wanted to see who it was, but… "Too bright," he moaned.

Shuffling, then: "Would you mind turning off these overheads? And give me a moment alone with him, please."

"Sure," said a second voice, then a _click_ and the bright light was gone. At the sound of a door opening and closing, Dean guessed the owner of the second voice had left.

The first voice asked, "Better?"

Dean nodded, though that made his head thunder. Finally, he opened his eyes. The room around him was big and clean and, as he requested, dark. A light shone by the door, but all the others were off, except for machines with dots of flashing red and green. In the sparse illumination he could just identify the place he lay as a bed with rails on the sides, and could see tiles covering the floor and ceiling.

Though his only reference was when he had visited Mommy right after Sammy had been born, he was pretty sure this was a hospital. "Di' I gu hurt?" He didn't know why his tongue wouldn't work, but the owner of the voice seemed to understand him.

"You did, Buddy. How are you feeling?"

It was a battle against the dim room, but Dean fought and finally got a look at the owner of the voice. They were a grownup, tallish and sitting in a plastic chair beside his bed. He could hardly see their face, but their posture was straight and their clothes tidy.

"M'okay. Who're ya?" Dean croaked.

"You can call me Terry." There was a clipboard in their— Terry's— hands. Dean stared at it, instead of at Terry's darkened face. "I'm here to ask you a few questions, okay? Can you help me by answering them?"

Dean shrugged, and realized for the first time that he could only move one arm. He jerked and looked to see what was the matter, finding a fat splint weighing him down. Terry watched him, then said in a kind voice, "Don't worry. You're going to be just fine. When I'm done asking questions, the doctor is going to come talk to you. Alright?"

Moistness gathered at the corners of Dean's eyes, but he didn't want to cry. He sniffled loudly. "'Kay."

"Good," said Terry, and flipped to the next page on the clipboard. "What's your name?"

A rattling moment passed in which Dean could not remember. Then it came to him, and he let it out with a huff of air: "Dean Winchester."

"Good, good. What are your parents' names, Dean?"

Though most grown-ups seemed to like to know that Dean's mommy was in Heaven, he didn't want to talk about that. He didn't want to talk about her at all, right now. So he simply said, "John Winchester."

Terry stilled a moment, said, "Hm," and wrote something down. "Alright, Dean. You have some broken bones, and you hit your head. Can you tell me how that happened?"

For a moment, Dean couldn't remember. He tried, but all he recalled was going to sleep on Miss Missouri's couch after a glass of milk. His bottom lip quivered, and he sucked a breath into his nose, trying to be still. "I don'— I don' 'member," he whimpered.

Terry put a hand on Dean's cast. "That's okay. Don't worry. How about this: do you remember who was there when you got hurt?"

That was a little easier. Dean's chest hitched a few times, stoking pain in his side. He winced and made a high noise, but that wasn't important. He had to answer Terry's questions. "Um- I-I think Daddy w's there. An' Miss M'ss'ri." Pausing to think, he lay as still as possible lest the stabbing in his side come back. Briefly he wondered if he had a giant, gaping owie that would turn into a cool scar. "An' Sammy," he added, because he wasn't sure whether Sammy was there or not, but he didn't want to forget his baby brother.

"Hmm," Terry said and wrote something on the clipboard. "What was your daddy doing when you got hurt, Dean?"

"Um—" Dean began, and then he remembered. Creaking screen door, arm against his windpipe, spit in his hair. He shot straight up, then cried out at the mixture of pain in his side and dizziness in his head. He began to gasp, even though it hurt to do so, and felt tears wet against his lips. Terry put a gentle hand to his chest, and it helped him to stop wheezing, but all he could think of were Daddy's harsh hands, his mean words—

"Dean, it's okay. You're safe, now. Nothing bad is going to happen to you. I'm here to keep you safe. You can tell me what happened." Terry's voice soothed slow and steady and like one of Mommy's lullabies over Dean's ears.

He liked what Terry said, but he didn't think it was true. He felt like a lot of bad things could happen to him. Had happened to him. Were_happening_ to him. Maybe Terry would tell him he was confused, that it was all a mistake. An accident. "Daddy came 'n the middle 'f th' night," he whimpered finally, blinking big, hot tears away. "He wantedta hug me, but then he— he grabbed me, 'n then he was chokin' me, an' Miss M'ss'ri pointed a-a _gun_ at us—"

"A gun?" Terry asked, and for the first time there was something not-calm in that voice. It made Dean's tummy twist up. "Did she shoot the gun at you?"

"No," Dean moaned, then was angry that his voice wouldn't go any stronger. "Daddy said- said he's gonna break m'neck, 'n Miss M'ss'ri— she shot 'im. Shot 'im in th'leg, I-I think. He walked funny."

Terry began to scribble violently on the clipboard. Dean didn't like how it sounded, sharp and urgent. "And then?"

"He—" Dean didn't want to say it. It didn't seem true, didn't feel right. Maybe he imagined it. "I-I dunno." Shaking his head, he clung to the scratchy sheet with his good hand.

The hand that Terry had put to his chest before moved to his shoulder this time. Dean couldn't see Terry's face in the darkness. He wondered if it was sad. "You can tell me, Dean," Terry said. "It's okay. Just tell me what happened."

Dean shuddered and let out a single sob, then shook his head. He felt like the rabbit from Bambi sat on his brain, thumping away. "I dunno! I dunno."

"That's okay. You don't have to know. You can tell me even if you're not sure."

The thing that made Dean scared was that he _was_ sure. "Threw me atta wall," he whispered finally. "But he-he dinn't mean 'ta."

For the first time, Dean glimpsed movement against the darkness of Terry's face: a mouth going flat. "And who is Sammy?" Pen tip intensified against paper grain. "Did Sammy come there with your daddy?"

This time Dean remembered not to shake his head before he did it. Everything inside his brain still throbbed. "No. No. Sammy's m'brother."

The scribbling stopped. Terry looked up. "Your older brother?"

"Nu-uh. M'baby brother."

Stillness. Dean saw Terry's eyes, huge and round. Then, "Just a moment, Dean. I need to go talk to someone. The doctor will be in here in just a moment, okay?" And before Dean could respond, Terry stood and rushed out, leaving the door ajar.

Dean sat alone and tried not to cry, because it hurt his ribs. When the doctor came in, she commended him for being strong and brave (though he did not feel either). Then she spoke about his broken arm and ribs, and told him about something in his head called a "percussion," but he did not understand. All he knew was that Daddy hurt him, and now he was alone. He tried asking the doctor where Sammy was, but she just gave him a fake grown-up smile and said,

"They'll find him, honey."

Which only scared him more, because did that mean Sammy was lost?

After doing several pinchy things to the tubes that stuck into Dean's arms (he felt like a robot), the doctor left, and Dean was alone. Exhausted, sad and medicated, he was left with little choice but to drift to sleep. He woke fitfully and frequently, sometimes finding the room shared with a nurse in a bright shirt, or a doctor in a white coat, or other people like Terry in tidy clothes. Through the haze of slumber and Morphine, he heard snatches of grown-up speak, things like _assault of a minor, possible attempted kidnap,_ _white male, thirties, limping, wounded,_ and _have the state police looking._ Sometimes people tried to speak to him, ask him things, but he didn't want to listen, so instead he stared past them at the wall or closed his eyes tight.

The next time he awoke fully, the room was empty except for Daddy standing there.

He wore big sunglasses and a baseball hat like the one he used to put on when they'd play catch. When Dean's eyes opened all the way, Daddy shed the glasses.

"Dean, Dean, baby— hey, you okay?"

Dean had never felt like this. He wanted to jump out of the bed and grab his daddy by the neck, hug him tight. But he also wanted to turn away and never see him again. Instead, he gulped hard.

"Daddy, where'sSammy?"

A gleam hit Daddy's eyes, wetness that clung a moment to his lower eyelashes then slipped away to join his beard. He pressed his lips together. "He's- he's okay. I got him. He's safe."

Dean pulled a sharp breath, wincing when it disturbed his stinging side. Daddy noticed, and shuddered.

"Oh, Dean." His voice was all scrapey. "God, what did—?"

"M'okay, Daddy," Dean said, not because it was true but because he hated that look on Daddy's face, a look he had never seen before Mommy was gone, and had certainly never seen directed at _him_. "Can I g'home?"

"No," Daddy whispered and shook his head. It seemed like he was trying to smile, but instead his face twisted up and his tears fell thicker. He put one hand on Dean's shoulder and the other on his face, and Dean tried to pull away, but his father's touch was too warm, too insistent. Daddy made a scoffing sound, a failure to laugh. "I'm so sorry, Tiger. I wish you could. I wish— _G-od_." His voice did this odd quivering crack. Dean didn't know what it meant, only that it make his chest get tight.

"What? Why can't I g'home?" he asked. "Daddy, I wanna g'home. I wanna see Sammy'n get outta here—"

"No, Dean." Daddy's voice shattered again, and now his great shoulders heaved. He drew in a trembling breath. "Oh, God, I'm so sorry. I have to say goodbye, now, okay?"

Dean's entire world stuttered between the forgotten beats of his little heart. He couldn't breathe.

"I love you, Dean. Okay? I love you." Daddy ran a thumb over Dean's face. "I love you so much."

"Where are you going?" Dean asked, the only thought he could catch long enough to pin to his tongue.

But Daddy just shook his head. "I'm so sorry, baby. I love you. Don't forget that. Never forget that." He pressed a stubble-harsh kiss to Dean's forehead, then put the sunglasses back on and turned for the door.

"Wait!" Dean gasped and reached out despite the strain of his side. But it didn't matter. Daddy was gone, quick as blinking.

Dean was five years old the last time he saw his father.


	3. 2008, cont

Sam smells Ruby before he sees her.

She worms her way up his sinuses and lightening-strikes his synapses in a brilliant rush of debilitation. Every neuron says "fuck it," and shuts off, except the ones that turn his head and send his eyes searching. He spots her.

The bar is vague with cigarette smoke, bustling with shoulder-to-shoulder biker types and prowled by more than a few thugs apparently cruising for a hook-up, but no one has approached Ruby; she stands alone at the bar, the hip of her borrowed body cocked like a weapon. Sam only remembers to breathe after he's stared at her for a long moment. He thinks he might die before he makes it to her through the crowd.

"Hey," he says, and hates the sound of his own desperation.

"Hey." She pockets her hands in her leather jacket, which bows her shoulders backward and presses her chest forward.

Sam feels her come nearer, not so much a tangible movement as a noon shadow that becomes nightfall when no one is looking. His fingers itch to dig against the smooth, hidden places between her true ribs, to hold her still while he presses his face against the crook of her neck, if not to taste, then only to smell. He steps closer to her, and her eyes flick up— not to his, but over his shoulder. She gives her head one twitch to the side, a rapid _not now_.

"Got some info," she says.

Just like that, Sam remembers that she is a pawn, not a damn lifeline. If she keeps his bed warm, his blood burning and his desire to fight from flickering out, that's just semantics. She's a _demon_, for Godsakes.

He glances over his shoulder, too, then turns back to her. "What you got?"

"I'm hearing a few whispers. Girl escaped from a locked mental ward yesterday, and the demons seem pretty keen on finding her." She lounges back against the bar, though her mouth remains hard. "Apparently, some real heavy hitters turned out for the Easter-egg hunt."

Sam frowns. "Why? Who is she?"

"No idea. Name's Anna Larson."

The name suckerpunches Sam. He drops without the consent of his legs onto the nearest bar stool, skull buzzing with memories of red hair, sweltering summer days, beer bottles clinking under night skies that put masterpieces to shame.

Ruby crosses her arms and arches a brow. "Jesus, I take it that means something to you." Her tone lilts into an inquiry.

"Anna Milton," Sam says, and the name feels stale against his teeth. "Last time I saw her, at least. M'brother's girlfriend. Or, I guess— wife. Yeah. Dean and Anna Larson." So Dean finally got his shit together and proposed. Are they still in California? Has Dean stopped looking for Sam?

Did he ever look in the first place?

"You have a brother?" Ruby asks, one part incredulity and two parts levity as her lips twist soft around a scoff. "Bet he gets a lot of Christmas cards."

"We don't talk anymore." What would he say, if they did? _Oh, me? Yeah, just drank a demon's blood so I could exorcise other demons with my mind. The usual._ "Not in the last three years, at least. He's a civilian."

"Well, better start writing the homecoming speech." Ruby pushes off the bar, slow and sultry and really not appealing to Sam anymore. "He might be helpful." She scoffs a laugh, glancing off in a conspiratorial manner, as if the menthol fog will return her humor. "If the demons haven't got to him yet."

And then Sam's stomach takes a nose dive straight into his shoes, because _fuck_— everything he's done to keep Dean out of this mess, every holiday he's drunk away in empty motel rooms, every night he's spent guilty for stealing that sliver of college life, every time he's ditched a phone, hoping he won't remember Dean's number (he always does)… it's done no good.

After all this time, Dean was damned from the beginning, just by being blood to Sam.

"It's 'cause of me." His voice rasps over the jagged edges of his blame.

Ruby rolls her eyes and pats his cheek, an action that's probably supposed to be antagonistic but plays to the part of him that's starved for touch. "Doubt it," she says. "They're pretty quick to drop your name, but nobody's spilling why this girl's so important. And she _is_ important. The order is to capture her alive."

_That doesn't help Dean_, he wants to say, but instead he asks, "This hospital Anna escaped from— it got a name?"

Without verbal response, Ruby produces a piece of paper. Sam takes it and nods down at the scrawled address. He's about to ask more (he doesn't know what, just something, anything), when Ruby's eyes catch on something behind him, and she frowns.

"Think I've overstayed my welcome."

Sam turns to look, and sees Henriksen in the back of the bar, shooting Ruby a look that's probably made tougher men soil their orange jumpsuits. Sighing, he turns back to make excuse, but no cigar. She's gone. He groans. For a moment he stares down at the address in his hands, then he steels his jaw and lets a few mindless obscenities roll off his tongue. He stands to make his way across the room, lamenting the loss of his informant.

It would be best to just take Ruby with them, but hell if Henriksen will sit in the same car as her. Henriksen trusts her information and finds her useful, sure, but Sam figures that it's a hard thing to get over when a guy's first impression of a chick includes finding out she's possessed by a demon and watching her preform the ritual sacrifice of a virgin. Even Sam had trouble looking at Ruby after that, but he knows better than anyone in this life that if it works, it works. Everybody lived, after all… except for Nancy. Sam tastes bile every time he thinks of her, remnants of the violent upheaval his stomach gave while her corpse burned in the field behind Henriksen's house. Henriksen came to his side as he finished gagging, and asked him if hunting was always like this. Sam shrugged and told him some days were worse than others.

So now he's sitting down in the back of a bar, across from an ex-FBI agent who not six months ago was trying to bring him in dead or alive.

When Sam sits, Henriksen watches him down the length of his half-drunk bottle, but doesn't say anything. He takes a few swigs, looks very serious, then takes a few swigs more. A while ago, it might have been unsettling, but Sam's used to the constant bad cop routine by now. It's not a wonder the guy's been through so many ex-wives; it's like he never leaves the interrogation room. Probably doesn't even do it on purpose. Sam guesses he himself is much the same.

"Did she have anything helpful to say?" Henriksen asks, finally.

Sam presses his lips together a moment, working out how to word this safely, then sighs. "Yeah. Gave us a case. Looks like some chick escaped from the psycho ward and now there's a reward for whichever demon brings her in alive. Ruby didn't know why." He hands the address to Henriksen, who examines it a moment, then hands it back to take a drink.

"Hm," echoes down the neck of the bottle. "Does 'some chick' have a name?"

"Oh. Uh, yeah. Anna Larson." He has no desire to go on, but Henriksen will find out anyway, and Sam learned quickly that the only way to operate with this guy is on hard facts and cold truths. "She's—"

"Your brother's wife, right? Dean, the one CPS grabbed." He says it with such assurance, such detachment that for a moment Sam just accepts it.

Then he realizes. "You know about Dean?"

"Sam, it was my job to know everything about you, and I do my damn job. Of course I know about your brother. I even interviewed him a couple of times." Sam must look pretty blindsided, because Henriksen breaks character momentarily to cut a laugh at him. Just as quickly, he's stone-faced again. "Why's his wife in the nut house?"

"Dunno," Sam huffs, resolving to be freaked out about this guy's extensive knowledge of his estranged family at a later, more convenient time. "But we gotta get on this one, and quick. Ruby said the demons want Anna alive, but Dean's probably fair game. If he—" If he what? If he died? If he got possessed? What would Sam do, if his big brother descended on him with black eyes and a wicked smile? "Well. We better get to him quick."

Nodding, Henriksen pushes his beer away. "I know that town. It's not far from Sacramento: fifteen hours from here, ten if I drive. If you sleep in the car, you can dig into it as soon as we get a room there, find out what we're dealing with."

Sam's lips part, and he can feel his brow twisting up. Though he's less than personable company, Henriksen has taken very well to hunting. He's sharp, quick and unafraid to do anything that must be done. He and Sam work well, both fine-tuned machines, wordless and lethal. But Henriksen hates to go into anything half-cocked. He likes information, having a plan, and generally getting as much upper-hand as possible before starting any hunt. So Sam has to ask:

"Why do you care?"

Already half-into his coat, Henriksen pauses, then adjusts his lapel with the purposeful air he assumes when bossing around local police on a case. "I only met him twice, but that Dean is a good kid," he says. "He insisted you were innocent even when there was an orgy of evidence saying otherwise. I thought he was stupid, but turns out he knew a hell of a lot more than me." He shrugs, and for once his brow loosens. "There aren't nearly enough good kids in the world there days. It would be a damn shame if something happened to one of them."

_A damn shame_. That's the biggest understatement Sam's ever heard, but he appreciates the sentiment. He stands as well, lungs light with the thrill of an unfolding hunt, stomach heavy with responsibility of Dean. "Alright. You drive."

—

Sam sleeps for most of the trip. Though the temptation is strong to sit up and worry, he knows better than to let his emotions hinder his performance, and opts to be fully rested when they get there. So he lays his head against the shuddering window and shuts his eyes. The '86 Buick rumbles around him, familiar and lulling; the hunk of grey metal is certainly no Impala, but it has been faithful to him in many a tight spot, so he begrudges it nothing. Afternoon flirts through his closed lids for a stretch, then the world outside goes dim and Sam melts in his seat. Between the intimacy of the car's rattle and the descent of evening, sleep comes to him more easily than he'd like to admit.

Hours later, Henriksen shakes him awake without ceremony. Sam blinks against the window. He aches, especially on his left side, where the skin is stiff and clammy. After a moment to gather his surroundings— riding shotgun, motel parking lot, sunrise threatening the horizon— Sam pushes out of the Buick and wavers there, barely lucid enough to make an unsuccessful grab at the keys when they're tossed his way.

"Booked a room," Henriksen calls without turning as he walks toward said room. "I'll catch 30 winks then head over to the nut house to get a statement. It's about fifteen minutes from here."

The world tilts when Sam bends down to pick up the car keys, little glints of silver sunk in the gloom of 6 AM. When he finally rights himself, Henriksen is a floating torso in the sparse exterior light, opening a battered door marked "12."

"You want me with you on that?" Sam calls.

His partner turns in the doorway and barks a sound like laughing, though his face remains stoic. "I'm a grown-up. I think I can handle it." Then the door slams behind him.

Sam stands alone in the parking lot, frowning. Okay— it was probably belittling to ask an ex-FBI agent if he needed help interviewing some witnesses, but Sam's only ever done this partnered hunting thing with Dad, who didn't so much as let him wipe his nose without backup. Working independently from the person he's reporting to is new. Pleasant, of course, but new. Sam still feels a need to follow into the motel room and hash out the details of their plan, but what's there to hash out? They have phones if the need to communicate arises, and it's not like they say anything to each other outside of the job. Sam's perfectly cool with that; he has long been a bedmate of silence, and to talk to Henriksen would be unfaithful. Besides, as far as he can tell, the only time the guy speaks outside of necessity is to call people's bullshit. Sam doesn't want to be on the receiving end of that. Not that his feelings are too delicate (_ha_), but he's done the hunting-with-a-strained-dynamic thing before, and he doesn't look to repeat it.

A good way to avoid that, actually, would be to get moving.

Breathing deep to clear his head, Sam digs his laptop from the trunk. Once he has it, he sits outside room 12 and mooches off the overhead lights and Wifi just long enough to find Dean's address. The search doesn't take deep digging, and Sam's insides shrivel at the thought of it being so simple to locate the brother he's worked to hide for so many years. All the times he wanted to look Dean up and drop in for a visit, but resisted: fruitless. A monkey with a bashed skull and a smart phone could have found him.

"Stupid," Sam mutters.

Directions memorized, jaw clenched, he slaps his computer shut and heads to the Buick. Since Henriksen is such a "grown-up," Sam figures he'll be safe taking the car and leaving his partner to his own devices for transportation. He pulls out of the motel parking lot just as the first inklings of daylight begin to litter the treetops.

With every yellow line that flings past on the asphalt, Sam's stomach knots a little tighter. He does not allow himself to think the worst about what he might find, because that is in no way helpful to keeping his head. Whatever happens, he has Ruby's demon knife, flasks of holy water and a ruthless streak as wide as the Pacific, so he's as prepared as he'll ever be. Worry helps nothing. He repeats this mentally, a mantra, until he's worked himself into attempting weapons inventory from memory, just so be _sure_ he's prepared.

Fuck. He is not ready for this. Even if there are no demons in sight, he's still showing up uninvited on the doorstep of the big brother he cut off three years ago. How will he explain his absence? Should he even try? What if Dean doesn't want to talk? Worse, what if he tries to rope Sam back into their old life, stagnant with normalcy? The thought that Dean has carved out a brand-new, shiny family experience for himself sits funny in Sam's stomach. Dean always seemed a restless spirit, despite (or perhaps because of) his stifling parents— Sam, for his part, can't even remember Mr. and Mrs. Larson's faces. It makes his chest heavy to think that he's forgotten the likeness of the people who raised the most important person in his life, but the point of leaving _was_ to cut ties. And now here he is, thinking about the what-ifs of reattaching himself to Dean. Stupid. He can never be a part of his brother's life again.

All ties Sam forms will become slipknots, and he should know that by now.

It's with that thought that Sam turns onto Dean's street. He judges the houses homogeneous as he drives by, and parks on the end of the block, far away from his destination on the opposite corner. The Buick isn't conspicuous in and of itself (not like the Impala was), but he doesn't trust a trunk full of hidden weapons anywhere near his brother's house. Dean is nothing if not the snooping type, and Sam isn't interested in catalyst for the "So, I hunt evil," conversation being an accidental glimpse of a bloodstained machete.

Armed with the demon knife, two flasks of holy water, and his pistol, Sam strolls down the suburban street. When he reaches Dean's house, he stands for a moment on the sidewalk, lower lip worried between his teeth. He glances at his watch: 7:23 AM. Hopefully he won't wake anybody up. As he crosses the damp, half-dead lawn, Sam remembers with a low chuckle the way Dean used to hiss at the intrusion of daylight on his attempts to sleep in. He wonders if his brother still does that, or if being a family man has changed him. An unhelpful part of him hopes to be greeted at the door by a disheveled, sleep-mussed Dean who'll swear at him for the early hour before he remembers to be mad about the years of excommunication.

Sam raps against the front door with his knuckles, other hand on the knife inside his jacket, and waits. Trepidation mounts a tap-dance in his ribcage. Momentarily, he considers kicking the door down. Then there are footsteps, the doorknob catches as it turns, and the door is open. There stands Sam's big brother, half-asleep and glaring.

"Y'know what _time_ it is?" Dean asks, at the same moment Sam says,

"Christo."

Dean's face remains unimpressed for a fleeting moment, then his eyes go wide and his breath gets short. "Sammy?"

Sam hardly so much as opens his mouth (to say what, he doesn't know) before Dean is hugging him. He goes rigid in Dean's arms, disarmed by the forgotten sensation of touch without pretense, and has to tell himself not to assess the press of the other body for weapons, not to crook his hands against Dean's neck so as it break it if the need arises.

"Damn it," Dean huffs warm against Sam's shoulder, "ya got taller."

It is not until Sam feels his face splitting into a grin that he realizes he has not smiled since— well. It's been a long time. "Yeah," he breathes, and forsakes his grip on the hidden knife to return the squeeze of his brother's arms.

But Dean pulls back. "What- what the hell?"

Sam frowns. "Um—"

"No, seriously." Dean's eyes are still blown, and his brow is pinched beneath his bed hair. "The fuck? Sammy, what—?" He looks away, wipes a hand over his mouth, then looks back with gleaming in the corners of his eyes. When he speaks again, it's through trembling and a tight jaw. "I thought you were dead, for sure. Where the hell have you been?"

"Sorry," Sam says, voice weak over the vowels. "I'm—"

"_Sorry?_" Dean leans forward on one foot and begins to squint. "That's where you were? Hot damn, Sammy, I don't know where _Sorry_ is. You're gonna have to draw me a map, man."

Unsure whether the tightness in his chest is annoyance or nostalgia, Sam huffs. At least Dean hasn't changed. "Listen, I'll tell you everything later." Probably. Mostly. "Right now, it's really not important."

Dean's eyebrows leap. "You kiddin' me? I can't think of anything much more important than why the fuck my baby brother fell off the face of the earth. You know that we thought you died in the fire for the first couple days? Then they said there were no other remains, and— damn it, Sammy, how could you do that?"

For a moment, Sam's entire world is narrowed down to the moisture in the corners of Dean's eyes, the twist of his mouth. Then the blaze of remembered fire comes over his shoulders, licks up his side where his skin is still twisted. He winces, even though he knows the pain is phantom. "You won't understand, Dean. I had to."

Dean looks officially done, _everybody-out-of-the-water, had-it-up-to-here, Elvis-has-left-the-building_ done. "Then _help_ me understand, man."

Sam sighs though his gritted teeth, putting his hands up in a gesture of calm. "It's a really long story. Right now the most important thing is—"

"The most important thing is the fact that you dropped off the fucking planet and then the FBI was after you! It's been three years, Sam!" Dean's voice pinches off at the end, and he looks away to pull a hard breath up his nose before continuing. "I've been calling you for _years_. You couldn't have called back?"

Everything in Sam unwinds. "You were calling?" Sure, after his initial disappearance, Sam had looked down at his phone more than once to find dozens of messages from his brother. But that was in the beginning. Had Dean really— "All this time?"

Dean's voice is rough. "Yeah."

God, he never thought… "What, the 883 number?"

"S'the only one I had."

Breathing deep, Sam reaches to pinch at the bridge of his nose. "I had to ditch that phone, Dean."

"'Had to ditch that phone'?" Though he sees it coming, Sam lets Dean shove him hard. "Criminals say shit like that! Now, I've wanted to believe you all those times you said it wasn't you, or you were framed or whatever, but damn it, the FBI was after you, and you've faked your death twice, and I'm starting to wonder if you've gone all-out Ted Bundy on me, Sam!"

Sam wants to say something back. He wants to grab Dean by the neck and shake him 'til he understands, wants to turn on his heel now and not be remembered the moment the door shuts behind him, wants to pull close and soothe the scars his very existence has left behind. He wants to, but he can't, doesn't know how. "It's not what you think," he says finally, pathetically.

Then the lights flicker.

Sam pulls the demon knife with one hand and sweeps Dean back against the wall with the other, forcibly shielding the shorter man. Dean sputters behind him.

"Sam, what—!"

"_Shh_," Sam spits, and watches as the flickering sweeps out of the entryway and down the hall. "There's something here."

Dean shoves at Sam's arm, groaning when it does nothing. "Dude, yeah, my _kid_."

Sam's brain is still stumbling over that when a baby's wail pitches down the hallway.

"Jeez, put the knife down! Why do you even have that thing?" Dean pushes past Sam's stunned shoulder and jogs down the hall, limbs cut into flutters by the lights.

Sam's brain is still darting circles around _kid_ and _lights_ and _danger_ when he starts to chase after his brother. He reaches the room at the end of the hall and swings in with a hand clutching the door jamb, still brandishing his weapon. "Dean! Stop—"

When Sam sees the baby in Dean's arms, the knife clatters from his fingers.

Though he has met many angels now, he has never found them angelic in the traditional sense. He still struggles to believe that Castiel holds halos and arched wings beneath the guise of a trench-coat and five o' clock shadow. As far as he's concerned, he has never placed his eyes upon something with any semblance of true glory.

This child is _holy_.

Light folds in rings from her crown, pure but not blinding, just soft, like Sam could tip forward and be wrapped in glory. His chest and his neck and the inner sides of his thighs go sharp with pain, and Sam knows it's physically impossible but the thinks he can feel the demon blood repelled by the sight. And yet, he longs to come closer. Maybe he is a moth to the light, an unclean thing longing to be baptized in fire.

"What, you never seen a baby before?" Dean grunts.

And Sam can breathe again. He still sees the rings of light, but they're secondary to the world around them, as if tucked just-so into the next layer of perception. He blinks a long moment until he can hardly see anything unusual, then clears his throat.

"Uh, Dean, your- your baby has… halos."

Dean's mouth opens slightly, eyebrows pinching up. "What?"

"Halos," Sam repeats, because there's not much to elaborate on here. "Like angels are s'posed to have. Like the kind they—" he purses his lips and huffs through his nose, "—paint on the friggin' virgin Mary. Halos, man."

At Dean's ensuing silence, Sam groans and bends to pick up the dropped knife. He stands, and Dean's still giving him the _seriously?_ look. The light around the baby pulses forward, then draws back again.

"Come on. You can't see…" Sam makes a vague gesture, "that?"

Dean looks down at the baby. It stares back at him, owl-eyed.

"Uh, nope," Dean says when he turns to Sam. "You on something, Sammy?"

Sam groans. "No—"

"Cause if you are, I ain't judgin', but I'm gonna have to ask you to back out of my daughter's room with that knife. Actually," he holds the baby closer as his mouth quirks down, "how about you go ahead and do that anyway?"

"I'm not gonna hurt anybody," Sam mutters, and cringes internally at the broken note in his tone. Like he would ever dream of harming his brother's baby. Hell, his own _niece_. He's never had much family, and though he's only known of her existence for a few minutes, she is precious to him.

The halos flourish around her as if she knows.

Stowing the knife back in his coat, he steps closer. He tries not to take it to heart when Dean withdraws that much more. "She's, uh, she's beautiful. What's her name?"

"Adriel," Dean says. Then he chuckles lowly; Sam's surprise must show. "Yeah, it's weird. I didn't pick it. I call her Addie. Anna won't, though."

Oh, shit. Right. Anna. This is a _job_ that Sam's supposed to be on. He runs a hand over his mouth, then clears his throat. "Actually, that's what I came to see you about."

Dean's eyes draw shut, and when he opens them again, it's with a hardened brow and a tight mouth. "What? Anna?"

"Yeah. I heard she's missing."

At that, Dean drops into a rocking chair near the crib. The movement jostles Adriel, and the light around her goes sharp and almost jagged. The electricity flickers again.

"The police said they're doin' all they can," Dean says, but Sam doesn't hear him.

All he can think of is halos and shorting lights and the fact that demons are after the mother of this unnatural child. What has Dean gotten himself into? Hell, can Sam get him out? If it comes to splitting up this family, or worse, ganking one of them— fuck. Sam doesn't know if he can.

"Hello? Ground control to Major Tom." Dean is waving, and Sam remembers where he is, what he's supposed to be doing.

Damn it, he's off his game. He can't go at this one like a normal job. But he's got to try. "Have you been looking for her?"

"You sure you're not trippin' balls, Sammy?"

"Ugh, Dean— no. Just answer my question."

Dean frowns at him, but says, "Just told you, man, the police are." Sighing deep, Dean lifts Adriel to burp her over his shoulder. The halos pulse with every pat from his hand on her tiny back. "S'nothin' I can do that they can't, anyway. Hell, I don't even know what's up with her. One day she goes crazy, talkin' about my dad and hellfire and a whole bunch of religious mumbo-jumbo, and the next day I'm havin' to call the nice men in white coats 'cause she's tryin' to drown our kid in the sink. Somethin' about abominations and how Addie's unclean, and..." Dean closes his eyes. He cups a hand against the back of the baby's head and holds her close against him.

"Weird thing is," he continues without opening his eyes, "the thing that freaks me out most is that when Anna tried to— well, you know— Addie was screamin', and," he swallows, "every light in the whole house broke. Shattered like the fourth of July. Like a friggin' ghost flick, man. I hardly even noticed it 'til I was sure Addie was safe, but after they took Anna away, I realized I'd been stepping in glass for the past couple a hours, and just… fuck, Sam, my life is freaky."

Sam feels like he's going to vomit.

Dean begins to say, "Hell, though, you probably—" then breaks off into laughing.

The abrupt change twists Sam's stomach that much harder. For a moment, it's all he can do to watch the fluctuation of light around Adriel's little head as she watches her father with eyes like saucers. Then he remembers his mouth. "What's so funny?"

"Well, I was gonna say you probably don't believe my crazy-ass story, but if anybody does, it's you." Dean's laughter finally tapers off, replaced by a returning frown. "You still into all that Satanic shit, Sam?"

Sighing, Sam glances to the ceiling. He doesn't know why he does this; he's long been sure that no help will come from that direction. Finally, he looks back to Dean. "It was never like that."

"Aw, fuck, you _are_," Dean groans. "S'probbaly why you've been AWOL, huh? Tell me, is the FBI still on you? Am I gonna get busted for aiding and abetting?"

Sam shakes his head. "Dean, I'm not a _Satanist_, okay?" Though, with demon's blood twisting in his veins, he's certainly something worse. "And no, there's no FBI. That was a big misunderstanding. I didn't kill those women."

"Got harder to believe that the longer you stayed gone," Dean growls.

"Well, it's the truth." The words scrape over Sam's throat, embarrassingly vulnerable. "Look, the important thing is that I'm here now, okay? We need to—"

_Livin' On A Prayer_ bursts from Sam's coat pocket. Dean jumps, Adriel begins to cry, and the overhead lights go haywire. Sam grabs for his phone but finds the screen scrambled.

"Lemme try and take this outside," he says, rushing out before Dean can make a response. He darts through the living room, every instinct he's got set on edge by the electrical mamba, and spills out on the front porch with his heart fluttering. Thankfully, he's able to get his voice steady the time he answers: "Henriksen?"

"_Sam. Where are you?_"

"Questioning Dean. You?"

"_Just finished up at the looney bin. Did you know you're an uncle?_"

Sam sighs. "Yeah. Just found out."

"_Did you know this Anna tried to drown the baby?_"

"Found that out, too."

"_You know why?_"

"No."

"_Well, I might. There is no way this bitch is human_."

And here Sam was, thinking he couldn't feel any sicker. "What? You sure?"

"_Yeah. She put an orderly twice her size out for the count. Doesn't remember a thing. Big deal is, she had this sketchbook. Anna was scribbling pictures of seals before she busted out_."

Sam puts the heel of his hand to his forehead, grits his teeth. "Seals? Seriously?"

"_As a heart attack. She's got Samhain and the Raising of the Witnesses in here, right down to Nancy's pink sweater_."

"Damn."

"_That's what I'm saying_." Henriksen makes a sound of disapproval. "_And that's not the worst_."

Of course not. Sam grimaces out at the newly risen sun, squinting against it, unable to remember what it was like to enjoy a sight like that. Now all it means is another day of dragging himself along. "Lay it on me."

"_Her folks are in the area. Thought I'd come talk to them, feel them out, see if they could tell me anything_."

"And?"

"_They're dead. Throats slit. Demons, I'd bet my ass_."

Sam sits down heavy on the front step. His head swims. He never met Mr. or Ms. Milton, but he heard Anna speak of them many times, with affection and admiration. He remembers watching Dean pace the floor, worried he'd never get anywhere with Anna because her parents didn't want their daughter marrying a mechanic. These people, so close to Anna, to Dean: dead. Gone. Without warning, probably without effort. Dead, just like that.

This is most likely the part where Sam's supposed to say, "Let's keep looking," or "I'll be right over, see if I can get any leads off the bodies," but instead he draws a shuddering breath and says, "I have to protect Dean."

Henriksen scoffs. "_If we don't find this Anna first, there is no telling what these bastards could do with her. She could be an ally of theirs, a weapon— hell, we just don't know. Dean is your priority. I get that. Believe me, I did my research. But right now you have got to—_"

"I'm sorry, I can't," Sam says, and hangs up. He stands, silencing his phone as he pockets it. Henriksen will call back, and he won't answer. This is probably putting his partner in danger, but Sam can't find it in himself to care. They've been hunting together for, what, a year?

Dean is paramount. Always has been, always will be. Sam will protect Dean first, no matter what it costs.

Of course, that probably means explaining to his brother that he's spent most of his life burning corpses and slicing open monsters. It might mean telling Dean that Sam, himself is a monster.

It might mean telling the truth, for once.

"I am so screwed."

The morning hangs bright and soft around him, and does not disagree.


	4. 2005

Warning for violence, implied rape and general darkness.

—

Of all the things in Sam's haggard life, Jess was the most pure.

This is not to say that she was perfect, or that their relationship was. They fought, matches that ended in raised voices and both parties frightened by Sam's capacity for anger. He never hurt her, of course, but sometimes his fists drew tight, his head went hot, and Jess told him to take a walk. Always, he returned subdued, shaky and sorrier than he could articulate.

And always, she forgave him.

That was why Jess was pure; everything with her was a clean slate. She knew nothing about his past but trusted that, someday, he would tell her where the jagged scar across his hip had come from, or why all but two of his fingers had been broken before. And he _would_ tell her. In time. Or, at least, that was the plan. He and Dean worked it out: Sam had moved out of Dean and Anna's place and got a place of his own with Jess. They would live together for a few more months, then he would tell her everything. About his long-dead mother and his estranged father, about why he and Dean had not grown up together. Monsters redacted, of course. But he would tell her what was important. And if she still forgave him, if she still wanted him, he would ask her to marry him.

Then the fire swallowed her.

Sam was asleep. He would not remember until weeks later that it was the first night in many that he hadn't dreamt of Jess's death. Instead, he awoke to the tap of blood on his forehead and witnessed it first hand.

He lay beneath her and screamed her name until the smoke stole his voice. Moving never occurred to him. Plaster cracked, the ceiling plunged forward, and pain like nothing Sam had experienced tore up his left side. Thrashing wracked his body, but he was half-buried, unable to shove free. For a moment, he gave in. It seemed the perfect goodbye, to be entombed beneath Jess. He did not want to leave her.

And yet, some unwanted instinct of survival kicked through, a cruel joke of the nature he'd been born with or the training that had been drilled into him, and Sam found himself struggling. His hands leapt into the rubble, fighting, clawing, until his fingertips were bloody and he'd been worked to the point of frenzy. But he was free. The floor kicked into him when he fell out of the bed, and he only lay gasping for the barest moment before he began to drag himself. Debris caught in his eyes, his throat. Around him, picture frames burst from the heat. Had Sam's hands not been occupied in grasping at the floor to pull himself forward, he would have checked to see if his side was gaping open; for all the pain, he could have sworn he was leaving his entrails in a train behind him. Finally he collapsed in the yard, blurry-eyed and unable to breathe around the cotton in his lungs and lava up his side.

Dean was his first thought. Dean would come. Dean would get help.

His next thought was also of Dean, on the ceiling, burning, just like Jess. Sam's mind was a scramble of pain and panic and half-formed self-preservation tactics, but one idea stood stronger than all the others: he could not drag his brother into this. Jess— God, he couldn't bear the thought of her. And he couldn't bear the same happening to Dean.

The decision to leave his brother was not easy, but it was immediate. Blurry-eyed and gasping, Sam pulled himself to his feet with a throat-scarping cry. He refused to turn back but he felt the fire beckoning, warm and brilliant against his back. His shadow listed in front of him, wavering in the reflected glory of the inferno behind. A glance down at his side revealed devastation, the skin so charred, twisted and inflamed that where his ruined night shirt ended and his flesh began was a mystery. With a groan and great effort, Sam suppressed the urge to stop and vomit. He had to keep going.

He still doesn't remember stumbling to his car and driving it, but he knows he must have done it somehow, because he _does_ remember collapsing through the ER doors of a hospital two counties over and passing out cold on the floor.

Half an hour later, Sam jerked awake and found himself in a haze of drugs, with a distant but jarring pain that tap-tap-tapped at his torso like a child's finger on a fish tank. He mumbled his way through flashlights in his eyes and questions about what year it was and whether he knew his own name (he gave a false one out of old habit, because a cocktail of injury and truth gets a guy hammered, and not in the fun way). When he asked, heavy-tongued, what had tried to eat him, the doctor smiled sadly and told him that they guessed about eighty pounds of smoldering debris had crumbled down on him, the burns were third-degree, and he was lucky to have escaped with his life.

He did not feel so lucky. To this day, Sam wishes he had died with Jess above him. At least the view would have been a comfort as he slipped downward, and he'd have brought with him some fire of his own.

When asked how he had been injured, Sam was overcome by the brilliant spectacle of Jess's face framed by hellfire, and could not say a word. It wouldn't be until a few hours later that he would remember the reason he had run in the first place: Dean. He couldn't tell anyone how he'd been hurt, because they'd figure it out, they'd contact his brother, and there they'd be: Dean, helpless against whatever the evil on the horizon, and Sam, too weak to protect him from it. No, Sam had to get away— far away— before Dean saw him again.

So he ran. The moment he was able to walk, he staggered out of his room in the middle of the night, leaving his bills unpaid and his IV tubes leaking on the bed. The next few weeks are ill-remembered now, a blur of pain, hunter-brewed healing elixirs, and internet searches on how to manage broken ribs, smoke damage and burn treatment without proper medical attention. Though the top skin had been spared all feeling by ruined flesh and nerves that would be scar soon enough, the muscle and bone below more than atoned for the outer numbness. Some days, he could barely move. But it was worth it. The pain kept his mind from Jess, and the secrecy kept the danger from Dean.

As best he could, Sam returned to hunting. The calls he left on his father's cell went unanswered ("_Dad, c'mon, please,_please_, it's back, it came for Jess, you gotta help me, Dad_—"), so he took small-fry jobs until he was feeling strong enough to mount a proper search. Between long library hours and contacting more able hunters to let them know which graves to turn over, Sam tried everything to heal his wounds: stolen FDA-approved antibiotics, hippie herbal remedies, rituals cooked up by untrusted hunters in dark hovels. Some did him good, but most didn't. He even took to wearing a medal for St. John of God, the patron saint of the sick, because he was told that it would help. It did.

Dean kept calling. Finally the sight of his brother's name on the caller ID knocked something loose in the jagged insides of Sam's skull, and he found himself flinging the phone against the wall. It hit the floor in pieces and did not ring anymore.

It was not until a few months later, when his side had healed enough to lay on, that Sam rolled over to find there was not another body to wrap against his and believed for the first time that Jess was dead. He twisted into the sheets and wept.

The next day, he began to search for John.

—

Jericho was the first lead.

Though Sam knew that the sight of motel walls feathered in research and an open journal on the bed should have given him hope, he experienced only the sickening feeling that he'd just stumbled upon somebody's left-behind limb.

The rest of the hunt was conducted in half-alive gestures. Sam questioned townspeople and pecked away on library computers. He narrowly avoided an arrest. He drove his stolen car into an abandoned house, and stood, mouth ajar, as two long-dead children consumed their mother's spirit. Then he wandered on foot back to his motel, doctored the puncture wounds the woman in white had so kindly bestowed upon him, and collapsed sideways over the bed to sleep off his unfulfilled expectations.

The whole venture did not seem worth it until the next morning, when he leafed through Dad's journal and found himself stared down by the stark _**35 - 111 SAM**_ nestled between an account of a changeling and a photographic negative of a ghost. He was on the road an hour later.

But Dad wasn't there, so Sam left. To this day, a wendigo creeps beneath the forest of Black Water Ridge.

—

Sam had to admit: there was something very satisfying about plunging a knife through his own chest. The crack of bone, the give of flesh and viscera. The light leaving his own eyes.

Unhealthily cathartic.

As he stood over the dead shapeshifter, he was able to breathe easy for the first time in weeks. This was it. A chance to be sure that Dean never found him, never got caught up in the teeth of the hellish menagerie that had become Sam's every day. So what if his reputation was tarnished? A good name does not a safe brother make. A dead body, however, could go a long way. Comforted by this, he spent that night tucked away from the authorities in Becky's walk-in closet, only to come out later and sit broodingly over take-out as she thanked him again and again for what he'd done to save her life and clear her brother's name. Then came the questions: How long have you been doing this? Are there other shapeshifters? Other monsters? Does Dean know about this? Does Dean know you're alive? Why did you vanish? How are you dealing with Jessica's death? Was it really just a house fire?

Sam made her swear not to tell Dean of his continued survival, and left his Chinese cold and soggy in its box.

To attend one's own funeral is a unique and surreal experience. Sam considered it. But the thought of Dean's tear-red eyes, Anna all draped in black, Jess's family murmuring quietly between themselves about whether their lost child's boyfriend had killed her too— God, he couldn't do it. Instead, he spent that night beating the shit out of and subsequently giving medical attention to a drunk who picked a fight with him in the bar of the week. The scent of damp back alley crawled into his sinuses as he held the guy's bleeding head in his lap and checked his pupils with his cellphone, wondering whether he should just phone an ambulance and ditch.

"I think you'll live," Sam muttered, and began to dial 911.

Blood ran in rivets between the yellow of the man's teeth. "Yer a— a gaw-dam _freak_."

The thought had occurred to Sam many times before, of course. This was just the first time he embraced it.

—

Visions were fucking _horrifying_. One moment he'd be on the street, or in a motel room, even interviewing a victim or potential witness, and the next he'd be overrun by imagery and migraines and the sticky stench of blood. They were never long. He'd come out of them moments later, gasping, with strangers inquiring on his wellbeing, or his face molded against a carpet. He'd always get back up. Write it down, try to forget it. Recover.

But he never felt so alone as when he had the visions.

Then, for the briefest moment, his power did not make him lonely. It made him empathetic. It gave him the slightest sliver of hope. It made him think that because he knew how it was, he could save Max. The terrible lot he'd been landed with could be something good, become a bargaining chip in the life of someone else who death and devil's fire had touched.

Standing over Max's body, gazing down at the self-inflicted bullet wound haloed by blood in the kid's skull, Sam knew his power could bring nothing but evil.

—

When Sam finally caught up with Dad, he wanted to drive a fist through the bastard's teeth. Instead, he went limp in his father's arms and allowed himself to be held for the first time in nearly a year.

Their time together was tumultuous, to say the least. Sam questioned Dad's authority at every turn. Voices raised. It never came to blows, but Sam glimpsed the tendons of his father's right hand twitching toward a fist more than once. Yet, it wasn't all bad. There was an odd, gleaming moment when Dad sat him down at told him about a trust find wasted on bullets, when Sam saw himself in the smile of the man he didn't love anymore, but hadn't let himself grow to hate. They looked each other in the eye, and Sam never felt so alike to another person.

A month later, those eyes went yellow. The demon's evil lounged on the bones of his father and smiled with a smile that Sam could no longer find himself in.

"_Why don't you do it, psychic boy? Wanna end this all now? Put a bullet in Daddy's heart?_"

And Sam couldn't. Though he wishes to this day that he could call the action selfless, he will always remember what gave him pause as his finger flirted with pressing the trigger: the realization that, if he shot his father, there would not be a soul left in the world he could call family. So they both left the situation alive, Sam's ear ringing with the scrape of Dad's yelling. Their last words laced the interior of the Impala with venom. Both were too irate to notice the truck that suddenly left its lane.

Sam woke up in the hospital two days later, fatherless. The doctors called his recovery a miracle.

He knew it was anything but.

—

Though it roused defeat in his stomach, Sam had to start running credit scams again. An honest job was no longer an option, partially because the itch to keep moving was too strong, and mostly because the thought of stable employment railed against the paranoia that had become his constant companion. If the idea of returning to Dad's old ways of theft and dishonesty was unpleasant, then worrying that his presence would be the death of any coworkers was unbearable. He put it off for as long as possible, doing odd jobs here and there, hustling a bit of pool, scrounging up what he could from the Salvation Army and stranger's clotheslines. But there's only so long a guy can live in a few stolen pairs of clothes and squatting in condemned buildings. Sometimes it was days between showers, too. So finally he gave in, filled out a form, and sunk into the convenience of fraud.

The feeling of new clothes and actual possessions— a duffel, a low-end laptop, more than one pair of socks— had him feeling oddly human again. Perhaps that was why it was so easy to believe he could be with Madison.

She was so average at first. Not that she was mundane. Madison had a spark, inviting him to stay for soaps when he came to question her, folding underwear while they talked. She prodded with her huge eyes and sharp humor and stout confidence at a long-dormant part of Sam, a part he kept fetal and trembling just beneath the shell of his burned side. The part where Jess's smile still fluttered, a reminder of all life could be.

Of course, it was a bit of a setback when she sliced into his face with her werewolf claws. No relationship is perfect. So Sam sated her worry with silver into her neighbor's heart, then with the hot press of his body against hers and words of assurance breathed against her breast. And Madison, in turn, brought him into her safety. When she drew the shirt over his head, she ran her fingers over the twisted wasteland of his skin and breathed, with a laugh like Fall threatening, "So mysterious."

And he knew it was only an attempt at levity, her way of dealing with the stress of the strange, battered man with his lips against hers. But it sounded to him an awful lot like _not asking_, like letting him keep his secrets. And he could get behind that. He fell asleep folded against her, and felt for the first time since the fire that he could have a purpose beyond revenge or survival. With Madison, it was very possible he could have a life.

The next morning broke over her silhouette in the doorway, half-naked and bloodstained.

Sam, at least, was able to coax her down from wanting a bullet in her skull. He'd done the same for himself many times as of late, and it was oddly easier with an outside party. He wrapped her up in his arms to murmur promises of companionship, normalcy, a cure. She believed him, perhaps only out of desperation. But she did believe.

For a while.

"Sam," hiccough, gasp, "Sam, you've got to. This can't go on."

Sam shut his eyes. His face stung against the wet rag in his hand. He drew it off and winced when the skin of his cheek, clingy with new blood, snapped back against his teeth. "Madison." He pushed his other hand into her hair and ran it slow and warm and heavy through the tangle of kinked brown. "It's okay. I'm… I'm gonna fix this. It'll be okay."

"No," she breathed, and let her head fall side to side in a lethargic shake. "It won't. Don't- don't you understand? I'm a— God, I'm a monster. It's not gon- gonna change. You can't fix it. And I—" rattle, heave, sniffle, "I can't do it. I can't. I _can't_."

Blood caught the glisten of 2 AM street lamps when she turned to meet his eyes. He gazed down from his perch on the corner of the motel bed, throat tight as he considered her red-stained mouth. She sprawled on the floor with her head against his knee, struggling over the ebb and flow of sobbing. Sometimes it seemed she would descend into true weeping, but she only shuddered and gasped, and occasionally let slip a tear or two. She wouldn't let him wipe them away.

"You _promised_ me, Sam." Was she snarling at him, or did he imagine the curl of her lip? "You said- you said one month. We-well, it's been a month, and- and you've got nothing, and I can't keep hurting people."

Swallowing hard, Sam steeled himself behind closed eyes. When he opened them, she wouldn't meet his gaze. "Madison. Hey. Look at me." Her fine jaw slid into the scarred canyon of his palm, smearing it with blood. River of red, like a plague on the Nile. "You didn't hurt anybody."

She whipped her head away, put a hand to her mouth. "I hurt you."

"Just a scratch. I'm fine. No real injuries—"

"Almost, though." She curled in, fingers going gnarled into her hair. "I was so close. If—" sob, "if you hadn't got there, or the sun'd come up just a second later— that man— I could've—"

"But you didn't," Sam said, voice soft over his straining throat. "It's fine. There's still time to fix this." Rag cast aside, he slipped off the bed to kneel beside her. "Just another month. You and me, we can beat this. You're strong enough."

Her head shook, dislodging a half-congealed pocket of blood on her chin and sending it in a trail down her neck. "I'm not. I'm really not."

"You got through it this time." He shifted close and put a hand to her shoulder.

She flinched away. "I tore the heart out of a _dog_ with my bare _teeth_, almost- almost _killed_ a man, tore up your face _again_— Sam, I can't. I can't."

"You can," he said, and felt a stab in the pit of his stomach not unlike selfishness. But that wasn't how it was. He was doing this for her. For Madison. "Come on. Let's get you cleaned up, and then if you get some rest, it'll all seem better in the morning."

Unmoving, she continued to face away from him for a long moment. Then her wracked shoulders shuddered out with a deep breath, and she nodded. "Fine," she said. "I'll shower." She twisted one hand into the bed sheet and remained crouched for a spell before drawing to a stand, steadied by her white-knuckled grip. Without a glance to spare for Sam still on the floor, she released the sheet, went to where their duffels sat, and rummaged until she came up with a pair of sweats and one of his shirts. Then she went into the bathroom, locking the door behind her.

Sam counted it a win. He slumped against the side of the bed in a long exhale. This next month would have to be the month that he found a cure, or some kind of preventative measure against Madison's escape, or— something. Anything. Desperation does no choosing. In the days leading up to the full moon, he and Madison had gotten less and less discriminating, driving hither and thither to every witch and creep who knew anything about anything. Still, it hadn't been enough. Not this time, anyway. But Sam was determined.

By the next rise of the full moon, Madison's troubles would be over. They had to be.

He shoved off the floor, trying not to cringe at the ache of his side lest he upset his face. The scratches were deeper than last time, surely enough to scar. Just what he needed: a few good ol' tears right up his left jaw, just to make him look that much friendlier. But he'd get over it. Hell, it might even give him credit with the hunters who treated him like a child. He never really was a child, anyway.

After cleaning his mangled jaw again, he wandered over to his duffel and lifted out the folder full of possible leads that had gone thinner over the past few weeks. He leafed through it, frowned when he didn't find what he was looking for, and set it aside to see if the page in question had gone missing in the duffel. It was then, rummaging through his clothes, that he found something else missing: his gun. His breath caught. He flung clothes aside, clawed into the side pocket, opened the wooden box hidden there, and— _oh_. Oh, no.

One silver bullet missing.

The room pinched in around his edges. His stomach plunged toward his toes. "Fuck," he breathed, then spun and threw himself against the bathroom door. "Madison! Madison, did you take my gun?" Silence. Shit. Shit, shit, shitshit_shit_. Was she dead? No, he would've heard the shot. "Madison!" He pounded flat-palmed against the door. No reply. Another pound, fist this time. "Fuck, Madison, you don't have to do this, okay? You can just come out, and— and I'm here for you. I've got you. You don't need that gun, okay? Madison?"

A strangled sob. Then, "I'm sorry."

"No! Madison!" Sam lurched back, then threw his shoulder forward into the door. No budge. Was this the one motel in the entire continental United fucking States that had doors up to code? "Madison, don't!"

"I— I can't anymore."

"No," he gasped, and threw himself against the door again. It gave, the slightest shift in the hinges. His heart hitched. He drove his shoulder froward again. A bit more give. "Madison, please! You have a choice. You can. You can live. You can do this. Please," impact of shoulder, shudder of door, "choose the right thing!"

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Sam."

A shot ripped the air, so loud that Sam's gut flinched. He shrieked, "_Madison_!" The door snapped free beneath his shoulder.

Madison's choice dripped red down the bathroom wall.

—

Sam jerked alive in a circle of salt.

"Ugh… wha…?" The world glared into him. Everything came too bright, too heavy on his ears, too sharp against his nose. His arm stung like hell. Damn cold everywhere, too. One hand flinched toward his face, but couldn't make it there. Tethered. A rope? Yeah, a rope, securing him to— a chair? He pulled and found every limb restrained, first just by the ropes, then by a throbbing pain that broke harder and harder over his muscles with each pulse. "Oh— G-_God_—" then he was choking. He gagged until something hot and foamy gurgled over his lower lip. It hit his ragged jeans in a splatter of red. "Wh-what—"

"…_ou hear me? Sam?_ Sam!" Ellen's voice cut the confusion like a knife into so much flesh. Sam clung to her alto despite the unpleasant something that scraped it raw. She sounded… distressed. Which, considering that he was likely hacking up part of his throat, probably wasn't amiss.

"Ell-en? Wha—?"

And it flooded back into him. The memory of evil writhed ghostlike through his body, recollections of his hands and feet and mouth partaking in a slaughter he had no choice in. His lips still ached at their corners from Meg's macabre grin. Blood— not his own— was stiff under his fingernails. Shrieks tickled around the shells of his ears.

"Oh, God," he moaned, and hung his head.

Ellen sighed heavy. "You remember?"

Sam nodded down at his knees.

"How long was it in you?"

A shrug sent tension snaking down Sam's spine. He bit back a whimper. "I- I dunno. A coupla weeks?" Acid rose in his throat again, and he gagged around it. When the heat had burned out of his mouth and onto his lap, he finally recognized a taste beneath the intensity: salt. Of course. Salt was good in an exorcism. Explained why he was freezing, too. Holy water was always a little colder.

"Do you know of anybody who got hurt?" Ellen asked, flat tone wavering.

"Steve," Sam said, and didn't quite know where it came from. He added without feeling, "Wandell. A hunter. Killed 'im." But he couldn't muster up any grief over that, because… "Jo." Finally he looked up, and saw that the name had pinched Ellen's face into a grimace. Oh, God. "Ellen, did I…?"

There wasn't much use in asking. He remembered it all. Every sensation hung with him, hazy from possession but strong enough to haunt him for a lifetime. There wasn't a doubt.

Ellen watched him a moment, mouth drawn tight, before stepping into the ring of salt. "It wasn't you," she muttered, but wouldn't meet his eyes.

The urge to vomit returned to Sam, this time unrelated to the salt roiling in his belly. "God, Ellen, I'm- I'm so sorry—"

"Just said it wasn't you," Ellen snapped, and whipped a knife through the rope on one of Sam's wrists. "She's shook up, but she'll live." Then she crouched and cut his ankles free. He tried for a thank-you and achieved only a strangled half-sob, half-cough. Mercifully, Ellen stood and left him.

Sam slumped in the chair in the middle of the empty Roadhouse and began to rub the blood back into his hands, though the feeling of captivity still weighed in the bottom of his ribcage. He shut his eyes against returning phantoms of Wandell's struggling and Jo's every fighting flinch. Oh, poor Jo. He had to— what? Apologize? What good would that do? What was done to her had been done, and there was nothing he could change about it. He couldn't fix it, certainly. Couldn't forget it, either.

When finally he pushed to his feet, it was only to collapse back into the chair. Weakness shot from his quaking knees up into his arms, and he found himself cupping his face with a hand that wouldn't stop jittering. His chest hitched once, twice, then several times in quick succession. His eyes stung. He swallowed it back. Crying wouldn't help him, and sure as fuck wouldn't help Jo.

Ellen returned a few moments later with a wet rag and a glass of water. The rag went onto the back of Sam's neck, making him all the colder. He wanted a warm blanket more than anything, but perhaps that wouldn't help; if Ellen was actively trying to cool him off, then the chill must've been due to a fever. At the sight of his shaking hands, Ellen huffed behind tight lips. She took his jaw in her hand, and though it flushed shame through his face, Sam let her mothering touch tip his head back and press the glass against his lips. He drank long and deep, pausing a few times to cough. She set the empty glass on the floor beside him.

"Can I see Jo?" Sam asked when Ellen had retired into a chair adjacent to him. "I gotta… talk to her. Tell her—" What? What could he possibly say?

Frowning, Ellen leaned down to pick up an old book off the floor. It was a thick volume, dog-eared and containing the ritual that had just driven the demon out of him, he suspected. She ran her fingers over the cover, then shook her head. "Look, Sam… I don't blame you. What you been through ain't your fault, and I don't doubt it's just as hard on you. You got a good heart and you wanna make it right." The book slapped the floor with a crack not unlike thunder when Ellen tossed it down. "Don't think Jo would take it well, though. Like I said. Shook up."

Sam was assaulted by the sickening thought of Jo lying in a bed somewhere, pale and weak and curled in on herself. God, _Jo_ of all people. Jo, who crashed the HHH hunt, who reminded him of Dean in spirit and tenacity, and of himself when she slipped from under her mother's thumb. Jo, who could actually make him smile.

Jo, who he broke.

"Best you stay put until Bobby comes for you," Ellen said, standing. "I just gave him a call. Keep to the front room." She nodded over her shoulder. "Bathroom's that way if you need it. You vomit, just try to get it in the toilet and don't worry about the mess. I'll clean it later." When she took a step forward, Sam thought for a moment that she was going to put her arms around him, and was overcome by a desire for comfort that he thought he outgrew upon Madison's passing. But Ellen stopped with one foot scattering the salt, then turned away.

As she slipped into a back room, Sam heard her mutter, "Damn Winchesters. Wasn't Bill enough?"

He hardly made it to the toilet before his stomach turned over.

A week later, at Bobby's suggestion, Sam went to get an anti-possession tattoo. When asked where he wanted it, we hadn't the faintest. "Wherever it won't fade," he told the artist. It went on his right shoulder. Lying on his aching left side that night, drifting in and out of fitful sleep, Sam found himself wondering whether Dean had any tattoos.

—

When Jake laid his knife in the dirt, and Sam wanted, more than anything, to trust him. How good it would have been to have a comrade to face the Yellow Eyed demon, especially Jake, who was cursed and war-torn in all the ways Sam could understand. What a pair they could be.

But nothing in Sam's life had gone well so far, so he saw the the punch coming. Jake struck air and staggered. Lunging beneath the other man, Sam snatched up his knife and twisted on his knee to strike— then found himself airborne. He crashed through something that spiked his back with pain— a fence?— and had no sooner realized that the wind was out of him, than Jake was almost on him. Instinct shot through his arm, and the knife launched straight into Jake's shoulder. Jake only flinched, but it was enough. Sam slung his heel into the other man's knee and they were both on the ground, struggling for a hold on the knife. Then _crack_, and Sam was screaming, the fingers of his left hand crushed.

"Don't—" Sam snarled, and drove his knee into Jake's stomach. The soldier jerked, and Sam got his good hand around the grip to tear the knife free, spattering hot blood everywhere.

Jake roared and struck out, but Sam rolled away just in time to hear the fist lodge into a section of the fence. He lurched up onto his knees, gasping, and drew back his weapon. For the briefest moment, he considered showing mercy.

Plunging the knife into Jake's back felt much safer. Sam wheezed for breath and twisted the blade until he was sure the spinal cord was severed, then ripped it out and staggered backward onto his feet. He went right back down to his knees. Without bothering to try again, he collapsed backwards and lay in the mud. His hand smarted like all hell, but he didn't know what to do about it. So he just lay there.

Then a shadow came over him.

"Sammy, Sammy, Sammy." The slow clap of two solitary hands cracked through the square and back off the houses. "Well done. Knew I had my money on the right horse."

Sam closed his eyes, because maybe that would make it go away.

"Now, now. Now's not the time to nap! You're my star pupil! Get up and chase that victory high."

"Just kill me," Sam wheezed.

Yellow eyes laughed, long and scathing. "After all the work I've gone through to break you in? Not a chance." And suddenly Sam was rising from the mud, limbs gone weightless and stomach turning. Anxiety shot up from his gut when the ground fell beneath the reach of his toes, but he refused to betray his panic. He opened his mouth, hoping to say something scathing, but found his throat useless. All he could do was stare back at the yellow eyes that had haunted him since infancy. He grounded himself in fantasizing about scraping those eyes out with his bare hands.

The demon bore a grin that could freeze brimstone. "No, I'm not going to kill you. All I want is your good ol', red-blooded, all-American cooperation." Sam spat on the demon's shoes. The grin vanished. "Look. I'm prepared to offer you a deal, Sammy-boy, but I could always just introduce Dean to the taste of his own intestines regardless of what you do." Sam's stomach dropped through his shoes. It must have shown on his face, because there was the grin again. "That's what I thought."

Something shifted gear-like in Sam's throat, and he was able to speak again. "What do you want?"

"Lots of things," Yellow Eyes said with a sudden put-on disinterest, "but one particular thing at the moment." He lifted a hand parallel to the ground and lowered it slowly, causing Sam to sink down to his feet. At the feel of the earth, his knees wavered, but his stomach felt infinitely better.

"That particular thing is?" Sam asked, glaring.

"Let me show you."

And then the world was a rush of darkness and sulfur. Sam felt pulled from the depth of his gut, thrown through space with time sliding jagged over anything that stuck out, _Keep all hands and feet inside the vehicle at all times_, the demon told him, and suddenly he was skidding through the dirt. When finally he stopped, his only thought was, absurdly, that the grass stains would never come out of his clothes. Add it to the blood, he supposed.

"Now, do you see what we have here?" Yellow Eyes asked.

With effort, Sam turned over. There in front of him sat a solid metal rod in a bed of gravel. He blinked at it, waiting as his faculties scurried over one another, trying to place the familiar image amid the mixed signals still firing from the parts of him that perceived motion and time. Finally, an answer slid into place.

"Train tracks?"

"Ding, ding, ding! Shoulda let the boy become a lawyer." Yellow Eyes crouched next to him and gestured at the tracks. "Now, I need you to break these up. I can't touch 'em or pass 'em, but I need inside."

Sam frowned and pulled himself to kneeling. It was hard, with only one hand. He wondered briefly if the other hand would even make it. He couldn't feel it anymore, which was certainly bad, but not unwelcome. "S'that it?" he asked. "Break some train tracks?"

"We'll call it Part One," the demon chuckled, then stepped back. "Well, have at it, Seabiscuit. Your brother's longevity doesn't have all day."

"These are iron! I can't move them," Sam said through gritted teeth.

"Not with that attitude, you can't." Yellow Eyes gripped him by the shoulder, and Sam flinched at the rush of adrenaline and… something else all together. "I think you'd be whistling a different tune if Dean were here, though. Choking on his own liver, maybe."

Swallowing hard, Sam shook his head. "Look, Jake had the super strength, not me. I can't—"

Then the demon touched Sam's temple, and a vision took him, an image of Dean heaving up a pulpy crimson mess of God knows what, and fuck it, those train track were going to _move_. Pain shot from Sam's temple right to his good hand, which he lifted towards the track on instinct. The metal wrenched apart with a violent scream.

Sam knelt there, stunned. Yellow Eyes laughed. "Better than I ever imagined." He shook his head mildly, as if having observed someone achieve a birdie on the 18th hole. "C'mon, Sammy. Let's finish this field trip. I'll have you back to class in time for juice boxes."

Beyond caring about his dignity, Sam squeaked when the demon pulled him up by the collar. He trailed behind the demon for a couple hundred yards before he could walk no more, and let his knees give in. When he hit the ground, he could just barely make out yellow eyes rolling.

"Can't even get it up for the home stretch. And here you had me so impressed." Then sulfur and the rush of time again, and Sam was in a cemetery, of all places, leaned up against a gnarled old crypt. "Here we are," said the demon. "You ready?"

"For what?" Sam groaned, but he didn't have to ask. Against the crypt, he could feel it; the writhe of spirits, whispering and begging and pushing against one another: demons. Hundreds. Thousands. He jerked back from the clammy wall and stumbled away, almost taking a spill over an unmarked grave. "What- what the hell is that thing?"

Taking a seat on the very grave that Sam just avoided, Yellow Eyes just grinned. "You feel them? Like being homecoming queen, isn't it?"

"What am I supposed to do?" Sam asked, trying very, very hard not to consider the implications of a distant demonic horde reacting in jubilation to his presence.

Yellow Eyes chuckled. "You're going to need this." And from his jacket, he produced— Sam nearly choked— the Colt. Sam snatched it up and pulled it close like more privileged men were supposed to do with love letters and small children. Once sure it was unharmed, he whipped it forward, cocked it, and—

Empty. Of course.

The demon simply quirked his brow. Sam swallowed hard and dropped the gun to his side. "What's this for?"

"It's the key," Yellow eyes said, and gestured to the crypt, where Sam saw a Colt-shaped engraving when he turned to look. "Pop it in, give it a turn, and say hello to all your friends."

_All your friends_. The meaning of it didn't so much hit Sam as it did slide over his feet, slow and creeping and hissing with its tongue flicking out, tasting his sweat. The crypt, the Colt—

"Devil's Gate," he said, remembering what had seemed like an old wives tale when he read about it during his illness. He wished desperately that he'd read more, or retained the information, at least. Would it even help?

Smirking, the demon rose from the gravestone. "Surprising me again, Sammy. Didn't think you were so knowledgeable." He pocketed his hands, and his smirk never wavered. "That means you know what happens now."

Yeah. Yeah, he did. Swallowing hard, Sam shook his head. "I can't. No, I— not even for Dean." It hurt to say it, but he had to. "I won't."

"Sammy! Sam-Sam-Sammy." Yellow eyes drew close and put and arm around Sam's shoulder, making his every muscle cringe. "You can't say no to your army. You're my warrior, my leader, my captain, oh, my captain!" The demon drew closer, so close that Sam could almost feel the follicles in his ear dying under the stench of sulfur. "You're the Boy King. You got a crown of opportunity, and now all you need's a kingdom. Whaddaya say?"

Gun still clutched in both hands, Sam shook his head. "No. Kill me. I don't care. Kill Dean. But I'm— I'm _not_ your warrior."

The sulfur grew thicker as the demon let loose a histrionic sigh. "Fine. Fine, fine, fine. Let's do this: you get me one demon out of there. Just one harmless little demon, and I let Dean live."

Sam liked to think he was a man of integrity. And certainly, he was. But not _that_ much integrity. "Fine," he growled. He shifted on his feet and rolled his shoulders, drew a deep breath. "How do I get just one?"

"With just a bit of willpower," said Yellow Eyes, and was suddenly pressing his hot, bloody wrist against Sam's mouth. Sam's first instinct was to draw close and his second was to flinch away, but then Yellow Eyes said, "You'll need the blood to do it, kid," and what choice was there, really? Sam drank deeply and felt a sick exhilaration snap across his nerves, struck by starbursts not unlike orgasm against the pulse points in his neck and wrists and thighs. But most of all, he felt— he felt _powerful_. The feeling of manipulation that he'd shouldered since the moment he awoke in the abandoned town left him, crushed by the weight of his succor.

When Yellow Eyes pulled his arm away, Sam almost followed it. Instead he pulled back, and relished in the sensation and power coming back to his weakened legs and mangled hand. "Now what?" he asked, and almost shuddered and the husk of his own voice.

"Get the Colt in there, then repeat after me. The incantation can keep them all from coming out at once, but you've gotta do the heavy lifting. You reach in there with all your power and your influence, and you grab the one called Lilith. _Lilith_, remember. You'll know her when you feel her. Understand?"

"I understand," Sam said, and for the first time in a long time, felt very capable of success.

Yellow Eyes smiled wide and nodded. "Then go for it."

So Sam snapped the Colt into its place and turned it, heart rabbiting and veins throbbing and brain pulsing. The demon began to speak, snatches of Latin Sam understood and other words he didn't, but he repeated each without discretion. Soon the doors had burst open, and inside Sam could see the mess of demon upon demon, all biting and clawing to reach him. But he had eyes only for one.

"Lilith," he whispered. And he sensed her. Deep, deep within, she was there waiting. Waiting for him, for his hand to draw her out. He reached for her, felt her respond, felt the blood in his veins longing for her touch, and then he _pulled_. She came rushing to him, the host before her parting like the Red Sea, and when she touched him, he heard her whisper things like _King_ and _brother_ and _killer_.

And just like that, she was gone. Yellow Eyes had stopped feeding Sam the incantation, so he planted his hands on the gates and threw them shut before anything else followed. It was then, as he turned to the demon whose blood still boiled inside him, that he thought of the whispers of Lilith who he had just unleashed on the earth, felt the power surge hot into his chest, and knew that he didn't need a gun to kill a demon.

Sam threw forward his hand and, soaring high on the thought of Dean safe and strong and healthy and whole, snarled, "This is for my family, you son of a bitch." The demon gagged, then choked, then lightning began to roil overhead, and Sam's vision went fuzzy and black, and he felt the demon's blood sizzling away inside until we was empty and tumbling forward into the earth.

He woke next to the empty body of a janitor with only one thought in his mind:

Lilith.

—

Sam hardly slept. Every moment, every hour, he spent hunting Lilith. Leads were few. A couple of demons cropped up here and there, and though Lilith had apparently raised some, they did nothing much for him aside from taunt and prophesy the reign of their army.

Then there was Ruby. She came to him— saved him, actually— and offered her help. Just what kind of _help_ she meant became apparent when she drew a knife across her skin and Sam felt craving spike up inside of him at the sight of her blood. He refused on principal, shuddering at the memory of what Yellow Eyes (Azazel, Ruby called him) had made him into, if only for a moment. His revulsion was strong enough to successfully resist Ruby for months. He chased every other possible lead, sat unresponsive as she chattered across from him in diner booths, slept in salted motel rooms with her just outside the door, and used the knife she gave him without a thought of debt. He promised himself that he would never give in, either to her charms or her tactics.

Then came one of the hard nights, one where the loss of DeanJessDadMadisonJo hit him hardest. The ache of solitude crawled up through his mangled side and into his heart, and he couldn't do it anymore. He rose from his bed and broke the salt line. He expected Ruby to gloat or say something sinister or, at the very least, smirk at his expense— and it probably would have been easier if she had. But she didn't. She regarded him with eyes almost sad, commented passively on the utilitarian state of the room, then sat down on the bed and beckoned him over. He joined her, and wondered if knowing that there was no going back made it any worse.

That night, as she drew close, Sam didn't know what to be more ashamed of— that he was unmoving and pliant as a demon crept up his chest, or that the offer of her blood formed a longing in the pit of his belly.

But it had been so long, Ruby was so close and warm, and damn it, _damn it_, Lilith was his fault, and it was his job to keep the world safe.

Could his own purity be that big a price to pay?

As he leaned in, fierce and wanting, he knew he'd never been clean, anyway.


End file.
